Plans for my recovered boat

[bitsamonkey]

Now that I've got the old (1969) boat back on the hard, I'm debating what to do with her. Truth is, coming from inboard boats with full transoms, I never really felt safe with the low transom on the Seacraft. That and the lack of buoyancy aft to handle a 450 lb motor make me think an enclosed transom is the way to go. I'm a welder by trade so it wouldn't be too much trouble to make a nice aluminum bracket a la Hermco or Armstrong with a BIG flotation tank. My question is: what do you guys think of a bracket with a 20" motor? I've looked at all of the pictures of 20 footers with brackets and it looks like there's plenty of room to move the bracket platform down a couple inches and the motor as well. I know it's nice to have the motor out of the water in rough seas, but that wasn't ever an issue when it hung from the 20" transom. I looked at the yamaha manual and saw that I would only need about 24" from the mounting surface to the transom to be able to tilt the motor all the way up, which would lessen the effect of all that weight hung off of the back. I'd love to hear some opinions on this from people who run brackets on 20's or maybe Mr. Hermco himself.