I am looking at going a different way. I own a welded aluminum and A lot of guys in the US go with a bow mounted trolling motor.
I will still need to run the kicker for trolling but the bow mounted motor will move/turn to maintain the heading.
The advanced ones have GPS and chartplotter interfaces.
Just kicker in gear and running? Or running just to charge batteries?? is his a 12v motor??? Cables run stern to bow or front battery set up?just depends on the current. I have a buddy that has a bow mount and he runs his kicker and steers with the bow mount. He likes it.
The big cost of a bow motor set up can be running a decent battery pack. Lots of the guys down south, especially on larger boats run 3 12v lithium batteries for the 36v motor. That alone adds close to a thousand bucks a battery if you go lithium. A decent lead acid set up would be 6-800. Then you need space for them...
If you need a big battery pack i can see the cost adding up quickly. They do work really well, especially for spot locking. But for trolling i think it would be a bit much. Having the kicker running would help the charging circuit, so you would not need much reserve power just the approriate 12/24/36 voltage and a charger to make that work.