Re: Do I need a new PROP? How can I tell? What do I buy?
You shouldnt take off with your trim all the way down, rarely ever.
When the boat is "light", or very little weight: Your boats trim when taking off is just slightly lower than it would be when on plane, only enough to keep the nose from coming up so high when taking off. Some people never adjust their trim at all, they leave it where the boat rides best at full throttle and keep it there without ever adjusting it. When doing this, the nose of the boat sits higher at take off until you get to planing speed, but thats it.
When the boat is "Heavy", or a lot of weight: It really depends on the location of the passengers present. Obviously, they need to be evenly dispersed so that the boat isnt lopsided to the left or right, but you really only adjust the trim to account for the adjusted front to back weight ratio. A good way to think about trim is to think that the direction your trim moves is the direction that the bow, or front of the boat, is going to move. If you trim down, the bow will go down, if you trim up then the bow will go up. Knowing this, you use the trim to adjust "ride hieght". Now, think about the front to back weight ratio on the boat with a full load of people. If everybody is sitting in the front of the boat, then the front of the boat will be sitting a lot lower in the water than it normally would, turning it into a plow and making it that much harder to get it up and out of the water and on plane. To counter this, you would start with your trim up higher than it normally would be so that the propulsion system can help lift the front end of the boat up out of the water to get it on plane. If the trim doesnt assist in raising the front of the boat, the front end will simply plow through the water like a bull dozer and never be able to get enough speed to get on plane which is most likely what is occurring with your boat.
If all the weight was in the back of the boat and the bow was sitting a lot higher in the water column when at rest, then you would start with the trim down lower than normal so that the front end would come down and level out allowing you to build up enough speed to get on plane.
When I have a good sized group of people, I will leave my trim at the same height as I would when im at full speed and on plane. Sometimes, depending on the "heaftiness" of the individuals on the very front of the boat, I actually start off from a dead stop with more trim than I would have at full speed, gradually timming back down once i get to planning speed.
