I would stick to either a fixed height bracket as shown above or do what I did and bolt a plywood motor board directly to the transom with a slim wedge in between to better angle the outboard. For some reason hte Day Sailer transom has a slight negative angle to it (top of transom is ever so slightly forward of bottom of transom) meaning most outboards cannot be trimmed to get the leg of the OB vertical, that was why I added the plywood mount after various tries a shimming the transom.
The plywood block that I used is actually the same as the one shown above, original owner of my DS II had a bracket, what is stainless on the newer ones was power-coated steel on the one on my boat, previous owner replaced the steel parts with pretty good aluminum parts, but I prefered to clamp outboar right to transom (and the bracket was on Starboard side, I prefer mounting OB to port of rudder). A bracket will allow any gas/oil that drips from outboard to go into hte water instead of into boat, that has +/- effects....... I think if I were to do it over again..... I'd use those aluminum pieces to set the outboard back a bit, although with my setup the outboard powerhead is less likely to get wet as the boat heels. Lower unit still barely drags under sail and doesn't cause enough drag to slow boat. I just REALLY hate those lifting brackets when used on a low-freeboard sailboat like a DS II. Even with my setup the outboard sticks up a little high, but not too obvious.
Last picture shows previous outboard, before I added the plywood mounting board.
