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Gregg,
Yes , we ran a heavy wire inside my buddies 22 outrage's gunnel for his trolling motor mounted on the bow. We drilled several holes on the gunnel with a hole saw under each bow rail mount. So as we dug the foam out, we put through bolts and fender washers on each rail mount. There were 2 panels were the speakers are mounted and on the right side of the boat there was a channel that ran right up into the console. So we ran the wire from the console , under the floor, behind the panel and drilled a hole on the side of the gunnel into the foam. We got a heavy gauge wire that was aluminum coated from West Marine. We dug out the foam and put a female plug in the mounting plate right at the bow. The foam is not hard but it is tough to get the correct angle from hole to hole. You just have to chip away at it and we used fish tape to help feed the wire. The holes were patched by a fiber glass man and if you look really hard you can see the patch job but most of the time you would never notice. On my Montauk, I cut a hole to put a through bolt on a 1/4" stainless steel mounting plate for my trolling motor. A big glob of 5200, a fender washer and 2 nylon lock nuts and I had the hole patched. You can not even tell it on the white gel coat. I just have the trolling motor wire ran on the outside on the Montauk but the gunnels are about 4" thick on the 22'. I would think there would be plenty of thickness on the 18'.