Rough riding boat Help please

[koberlee]

Hey guys I have a Stingray SVB165SS with a 3.0L merc, The boat runs great and rides great until the water gets a little choppy and then when at speeds above 20-25 Mph it starts slamming as it goes over waves and I don't even dare give it full throttle (40 Mph). When going to fast it will slam the whole boat so hard I actualy lost a part of my windshield. Is this just the characteristics of a shorter boat or am I trimming it out improperly? Would something like a hydrofoil or more weight up front help? Please help because this seams to scare my wife and she feels that the boat is unsafe at speed.
Thanks,

 

[Don S]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Moving to Boat Topics and Questions (not engine topics)

 

[tommays]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

That is about how it works waves are like pot holes

Small boats = slow speeds in rough water

I can rarely run over 20 MPH as its allways choppy here and many times in the afternoon have to slowdown to 12 MPH if i dont want to go the doctor after boating


Tommays

 

[Scout Sport Fish]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Play with the trim to see if you can get higher out of the water. With my boat when I trim up (and generally all other boats) it gets higher out of the water and just skims the crest of te wave.

 

[BoatAddiction]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Play with the trim and try to find the "sweet spot" so that you can "skip" the crests of the waves. It is a fairly short boat and I imagine (since I'm too lazy to look up the configuration) that it has a relatively shallow draft with no deep vee and is not capable of simply plowing through the seas while at planing speed. Because of this, playing with the trim may not do you a whole lot of good. Sometimes you just have to slow down to avoid taking a beating.

 

[JB]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Short, fairly stable boats do not do well at speed in a chop.

Slow down or get a deep vee boat.

 

[sea wolf]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Where boats are concerned, size does matter. Not much you can do except move up to a bigger boat. I don't think a hydrofoil will do much. What year is it, can you trade up?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Have you not heard the expression "water does not compress?" Next time you have a tub full of water, slap it with the flat of your hand as hard as you can. Or just do a belly flop in the swimming pool. Same thing with a boat -- you are essentially running into a solid wall.

 

[Coors]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

A hydrofoil will mess you up.
Above posts are correct; only a deep vee will plow through the waves, and with some waves, that doesn't work real good.

 

[QC]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

As someone said, experiment with trim and speed. Every water condition requires a different combo of throttle and trim. If you get a Hydrofoil I will hunt you down and . . . remove it You might look into Smart Tabs though as these will allow a very low, and more comfortable, planing speed that may be exactly what you need for rough water. As soon as I typed that I wanted to add sometimes . . .

 

[boltonranger]

His boat IS a deep vee.

His boat IS a deep vee.

Since you do have a deep vee hull - don't worry about a different hull
I have a 176ss and yeah you will need to throttle back the choppier it gets.
However if you put a doel-fin on your lower unit ( as I have ) it will allow you to trim the boat better to avoid the pounding. I trim mine so that it doesn't completely cut the wave yet doesn't doesn't porpoise up and down.
I am told trim tabs help; but have never tried them.

The combination of less throttle and trim will improve your ride.
-br

 

[aerwin]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

my boat always seemed rough riding in chop also, I would look at other boats and they seemed to look smooth running, my boat is 18 1/2 ft and a fairly deep v, my main problem is the omc stringer I have, it wouldnt let me trim the boat because of its design. I took the advice of a soom very knowledgle people on this board and they said try the smart tabs. I did ant it made a world of difference in the chop, on plane they change the attitude of the boat and it glides smoother over the chop and I can go faster now over the chop, I know the beating you were getting, I was getting it also. give them a try, they are not that expensive and if they work for you then you will be happy. I was also getting real bad bow rise and porposing also and they took care of that also, TRIM TABS the way to go!!!

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

I used to have an '89 Ranger 680C Fisherman (17').....you can go to the Ranger site and see what this is. Hasn't changed too much over the years. It's sitting on basically the Ranger padded hull of the day but the dead rise was about twice what the BB's had with pad and lifting strakes.

Lakes here are always rough. I had two ways to deal with that. If not too rough, I'd hammer down on it and trim the bow into the oncoming wave if headed into the wind or trim out and let the transom float over the wavetops when going with it. Very nice, very smooth, very much fun.

When it was really rough, I'd trim out to get the bow up and set her up just at/slightly under planing speed.....14-18mph area. This would give me about 6' of freeboard over the bow (yes, the bow is up in the air) where the bow could stay above the oncoming water. She would just ride up and down with the waves and I was using the effect of the V to slice thru the water, not pound on it. You have to play with it like BoatAddiction said to find the sweet spot, but I have come home very comfortably (and dry) in some really large waves, for inland waters, with a minimum of pounding.......and that 115 Merc "Tower of Power" never missed a lick, never. A flat hull (semi-V) I doubt would have worked having had some of them too......but I had no trim when I had them.

For offshore waves, with light to moderate wind, I just quarter them and adjust the speed and trim for the best ride. For high wind/waves, do what I mentioned above. Obviously the throttle gets a workout to hold that attitude.

HTH

Mark

 

[QC]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Mark ^^^^ speaks the truth . . . So does aerwin.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Thanks QC.

 

[studlymandingo]

deep vee or not deep vee...

deep vee or not deep vee...

However if you put a doel-fin on your lower unit ( as I have ) it will allow you to trim the boat better to avoid the pounding. I trim mine so that it doesn't completely cut the wave yet doesn't doesn't porpoise up and down.
I am told trim tabs help; but have never tried them.

BR, if you remove the doel-fin and install a set of tabs, you will wonder what the heck you were ever doing with that fin on there in the first place!

 

[boltonranger]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Let me rephrase that - my boat came with the doel-fin.
I've run the boat with and without.
With is better.
I've never really been unhappy with it - only curious about t-tabs.
Not curious enough to drill the boat though; I never cared for the way tabs ruin the "lines" of the transom.
The doel-fin was free with the boat - and it does what they say it does...

Still... some of the posts make me curious about how much the ride can be altered; who knows?...maybe I'll change my mind sometime...
-br

 

[Wotam]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

>"Still... some of the posts make me curious about how much the ride can be altered; who knows?...maybe I'll change my mind sometime..."

The ride quality of the boat is basically inherent to the design. (size, weight, hull form etc). As others have suggested, about all you can do is experiment with altering your speed and trim... typically to reduce speed and trim the bow up in rough water.

Adding/removing hydrofoils, trim tabs, weight up front etc are only going to have a marginal effect on your ride quality.

Smooth ride at 40 mph in a small boat across a 3' chop? If you figure this one out, there's a job for you as a boat designer.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

Wotam, I don't need a job, but if you quarter or go sideways to the chop it gets real smooth real fast. Try it, you may like it.

Mark

50+ year mariner

 

[Wotam]

Re: Rough riding boat Help please

>"Wotam, I don't need a job, but if you quarter or go sideways to the chop it gets real smooth real fast. Try it, you may like it."

Heh heh... unfortunately, most of the time the wind doesn't show any consideration for the particular direction I might need to go. (Or have any respect for my days off either.) :>)

Today it's 20 gusting 25 and the wind chop off the Northern California coast is running 4 to 6 feet... so it's ugly no matter what direction you're going. Salmon season is rapidly slipping away, but it is far too nasty out there for an open 19' boat. So, instead it's a nice day to be staying on the beach.

(Been 'messing around in boats' for nearly 40 years myself.)