Installing a Minn Kota Terrova Riptide – Out With the Old In With the New

A quality trolling motor can make a world of difference for your on-the-water experience, giving you more control of your boat’s position in the wind and current. After being at the mercy of the wind and current while trying to fish for sheephead on my buddy’s 1995 Action Craft Flatsmaster this spring, we decided we wanted and needed some more control. So out with the old and in with the new: a new Minn Kota Terrova Riptide, a modern trolling motor to replace his much older, well-used hand-steer Minn Kota trolling motor. This is a 60″ shaft 24V model of the Riptide Terrova, which should work perfectly in both fresh and saltwater, and have enough shaft length to deal with any chop one might run into when mounted on a Flatsmaster.

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So the first step, besides getting the trolling motor, is also to order a mounting bracket for the trolling motor. While you can direct-mount a trolling motor to your boat, a quick-release bracket is very convenient to have and, in our case, was needed. A quick-release bracket lets you easily remove your trolling motor if needed, to either put it away securely or just not have your trolling motor open to the elements when not in use.

The second step was to remove the RTA-19 mounting puck from the Flatsmaster, so we could mock up how the Terrova Riptide would sit on the bow and see what clearance, or lack thereof, we would have with the rub rail. Using the proper RTA-17 quick-release bracket for the Terrova Riptide, we found the shaft wouldn’t clear the large rub rail on the flats boat.

So we called it a day on mounting the motor to the boat and worked on the electrical side of installing the Minn Kota. Since he already had the proper gauge wiring from his old trolling motor running through the boat, we didn’t have to install any new cables. We did have to add and wire in a new 12V deep-cycle marine battery, though, since we were going from a 12V trolling motor to a 24V. Minn Kota has a wiring diagram on their website for you to reference when wiring up the trolling motor. For anyone who doesn’t have the wiring already in place, you can reference Minn Kota’s wiring and battery guide to figure out exactly what gauge wires you need.

First, on the trolling motor side of the power cable, we crimped on and sealed a plug. On the battery side of the power cable, we added a 60 Amp resettable circuit breaker to the positive side of the power cable.

With the circuit breaker in place, we wired the two 12V deep cycle batteries in series to create the 24V system needed to power the Terrova. So, the positive (red) wire ran from the circuit breaker to the positive terminal of the first battery. Then, from the negative (black) terminal of the first battery, connect to the positive (red) terminal of the second battery. Then, connect the negative (black) terminal to the negative (black) wire running to the trolling motor. Make sure to use the proper gauge wires for doing this; I used 2 AWG wire for this because I had spools of it on hand from another boat project, but 4 AWG wire is plenty for battery work.

With the wiring in place, I went about making a cardboard template for an extended mounting bracket and called it a day. Once the piece of 1″ thick HDPE board came in, I went about fabricating a mount. There are commercial extended bracket offerings available online, at various price points from $130 to $700, but to fit the cleat on the 95 Action Craft, I chose to make a bespoke bracket.

HDPE is a pretty easy material to work with, cutting and sanding well on woodworking tools. So using the template, I spent an hour cutting and sanding the HDPE into shape and was ready to take it back up to my buddy’s house to drill the final mounting holes and install the trolling motor.

Wanting to not drill anymore holes than neccasry into my buddy’s boat, I utilized the holes used for the original RTA-19 puck. Taking the cardboard template and laying it onto where the bracket will mount, I punched holes through the cardboard to mark where the existing mounting holes were. Then I laid the cardboard on top of the HDPE bracket and lined up the RTA-19 puck before clamping all three pieces together. That way, the RTA-19 puck will act as a guide for your drill, keeping your holes lined up properly and not canted.

Then, flipping the bracket around, I used the RTA-17 mounting plate to drill the holes needed for its puck. I counterbored two of these holes later so the Nylock nuts and screws would be flush with the bracket where it would be lying on the fiberglass.

Now that we no longer need the full RTA-17 plate to prep the extension bracket, it’s time to mount the quick-release bracket to the Terrova itself. This is pretty easy; you just need a large screwdriver and an 11 mm wrench. You first take off the side plates by removing two screws on each plate to expose the bolt holes.

Following the instructions and using the supplied hardware, line up the plate to the trolling motor and thread the bolts through and secure them in place with the provided washers and bolts.

Once you have all six bolts in place and the security lock is installed, reattach the side plates, and you are done.

With all the holes drilled in the extension bracket and the RTA-17 bracket attached to the Terrova Riptide, it’s time to mount everything to the Action Craft. Use the supplied stainless steel hardware and some marine grade adhesive/sealent and mount your extension bracket / RTA-17 puck.

With all the mounting hardware in place, we tested the clearance, making sure there was plenty of space between the trolling motor shaft and rub rail. (I know the photo makes it look like it’s touching; it’s the angle. There is about 3 inches of clearance on the other side of the boat.) This was when we crimped the plug to the trolling motor wires. So, with us running out of daylight, we had to go on the water and give the Terrova Riptide a test run real quick.

So after hooking up the trailer, we made our way to Lake Chickamauga and did a little bit of fishing before the sun went down. Making sure all the functionality was there and everything was working right.

It took all of 5 minutes to have my buddy convinced about how much better this new modern Terrova Riptide was compared to his old trolling motor. Once he got used to controlling the motor through a remote instead of manually, it was on. We started working a ledge that was covered in grass, cruising along until we saw a lot of activity near the point of it. He hit the spot lock to hold the boat exactly where he wanted and made a cast near where we had seen a big swirl where some bass had been working some bait. All it took was a few pops and the spook got slammed by a solid bass. Not a bad first fish on a quick trip to test out the basic functionality of the Terrova Riptide.

Once we read up some more to learn all of the advanced features and functions available in this new trolling motor, we are 100% going to take full advantage of them for chasing fish in fresh and saltwater in the future.

So I do want to talk about two things I didn’t cover on this install. First off is the heading sensor; this is a small 12V piece of hardware that will come with your Minn Kota Terrova trolling motors and will help improve navigation and give you the option to use the Spot-Lock Jog function with your trolling motor. Second is connecting the trolling motor to the graph on the boat; both of these steps were skipped in this install because some other work that will be done on the boat involving the graph. So, sorry if you were wanting to see about installing the heading sensor here, but a video is available on the Minn Kota site in the link above.

Additionally, I recommend that anyone who will be taking a trolling motor into the saltwater environment or bigger water to look into grabbing a MKA-60 stabilizer kit for securing the trolling motor on your bow. This will help protect your investment for the long run.

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