Oh man, this all feels very familiar. I am a few steps further down the exact same road on my 25. Outboard bracket felt too flimsy, swim ladder felt too flimsy, access to the inside sucked.
On mine the liner had an opening on the starboard side (which I assume they used as access for the poor guy at the factory who had to hold the wrench on the inside when bolting the deck/hull joint) and no opening on the port side. With all the foam out, you can crawl across, but it’s no fun. I cut out an opening on the port side and covered the edge with some rubber edge trim.
Surprisingly I can’t find a picture of it’s current state, but here is one from when I bought the boat, with the red line showing roughly where I cut. I would leave some amount of lip remaining to prevent the liner from getting too flexible.
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For the outboard bracket, as a temporary fix I added some giant washers made from some 1/8” aluminum I had laying around. I plan to beef this up more. I have an extra long shaft OB, with the mount lowered the prop is acting against the transom via a 3 ft lever arm, that seems like a lot. Right now I’m thinking of wrapping some 3/4” plywood in glass and gelcoat and adding that between the transom and bracket on the outside.
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The swim ladder is another story. Mine was bolted to the vertical portion of the deck just above the deck/hull joint. I think at some point someone backed into something (not sure if on the water or on the trailer) with the ladder down, because the fiberglass was cracked around the mounts and where the bumper rests against the transom. I took the ladder off and repaired all the damage, but it hasn’t gone back on yet.
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