Need More HP?

[rice1952]

My boat is a 25' tritoon with a Mercury 150 4-stroke. It's my first tritoon and I bought it used with a 15x17 4 blade prop. WOT with that prop at 5800 rpm was 23mph. I then tried a 3 blade 15 1/4 x 15 to try and get a bit more speed but can't tell much difference except possibly a tad better accelleration. Again, top end is about 23 mph. Any thoughts on how to coax a bit more speed out of a heavy boat?

 

[jlh3rd]

short answer...more horse power. I'm not being sarcastic.
I have a 24' , twin 25" tubes, 115 hp CT motor.
I have used a merc. 4-14x14, 3-16x12, 3-16x13 and a current solas 3-15.5x13...
The 4 blade merc, 3-16x13, and solas 3-15.5x13 all give practically same numbers . I can post them. Max rpm is 5800 for all of these with the 4 blade maybe .5 mph faster...
The 3-16x12 gave me my 6000+ rpm but top speed was only 22.5..
point being is that props aren't some magical device. Higher rpm got me slower top end but I could pull 5 teens on two tubes and not load my motor.
some say a stainless steel prop might tweak your #'s...but they're expensive when you're guessing.
And I've also been told that tri-toons are heavier than a twin tube and takes more power. looks like that is true...

 

[DeepCMark58A]

If you want to go fast buy a go fast boat, people are trying to make silk purses out of pontoons, they are a flat barge.

 

[cyclops222]

You need 2 very different boats.

 

[Scott Danforth]

. Again, top end is about 23 mph. Any thoughts on how to coax a bit more speed out of a heavy boat?

lifting strakes and a whole lot more power.