Mac can you elaborate on rigging correctly for non tunnels? Thanks
By rigged correctly I mean it has a jack plate and all the goodies to run shallower. If you don’t have a jackplate and the compression plate is too low it will kill your efficiency. You could probably get the height right and not use a jack plate but I don’t rig skinny skiffs without them.
My current skiff is a Whipray. My previous skiff was a Beavertail B2.
Both were are non tunnels. The B2 already had a jack plate, no compression plate. The Whipray did not have either. They both had non-cupped props.
I ran the same approach on both. I mounted the engine as high as possible, I had the plate mounted as high as possible. I added a ShawWing compression plate (no 5200, just marine caulk). Jack Foreman dialed me on heavy cup props.
They key was to get the midline on my lower unit (the prop shaft) even with the bottom of the stern. This means while running, my prop would be approximately half way out of the water. That is not 100% true since water sprays up towards the plate and back down, but you get my drift. I can raise it another inch higher, but I lose water pressure. If I had the low water pick up from @Smackdaddy53 I could run another few inches higher, but I would need a riser plate on my current setup. Or a plate with more lift.
I do run larger water intakes on my current setup - Tohatsu 50 hp short shaft. They do work good.
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@WatermanGB check out this pic of my Whipray. This is where I run it - I can go another inch up but lose water pressure just enough where I cannot run long distance.
If I had the Low Water Pickup from @Smackdaddy53 I could have this another 2 - 3” higher. It’s on my list, but want to get the Hull Marine jack plate and mod my Tohatsu 50 to a 60 at the same time.
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@coconutgroves is your 50 a 15" or 20" shaft?
Why is there paint on your skeg? LOL
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15” - but when I bought it, it was not rigged with a jack plate and was on the middle bolt. The lower unit was a good 12” below the bottom of the transom. If I were HB knowing this boat was going to the Texas coast, I would have told the buyer to rig it differently. But hey, it gave me some fun work to do during an offseason.
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Haha, it was new. You should see it now.
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That looks so nice, hopefully performs as good as it looks.
That is definitely one sexy comp plate. Hopefully performance will match.
So I finally got a chance to run the boat today with the plate. All I can say is I’m very impressed with how the boat ran.
- the boat has a lot more stern lift, especially getting on plane.
- It wanted to run maybe an inch from maxed out on the jack plate. It was maybe 2 inches from max before for the “sweet spot”
- more grip! when getting on plane. I could get on plane with the jack plate maxed out before. So not much change there. But it does seem to “push” harder or jump forward harder when I hit it. So I guess more torque when maxed out.
- surprisingly didn’t expect this but when running trimmed out my handling is much better in turns. I feel very confident that it will not slide and stay on rail.
The only downside I noticed was it definitely has more torque steer when trimmed out fully. I don’t notice any under normal running conditions. So that’s good. I’m going to tweak my anode and see if it helps. If not I certainly can live with it.
More pictures because…
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Tq steer on mine when jacked up is/was pretty gnarly, because everything is outta the water, so I figured I’d try the bobs tq tamer. It wasn’t an end all be all to the issue, but it certainly helped. May be worth a shot for yours as well.
@MikeCockman what hp outboard?
25hp 2s Merc.
@Capt.Chris Thanks for posting the update, sounds like it’s a winner. I believe you mentioned that your prop is a Foreman correct?
Torque steer or prop torque or whatever you want to call it is just the side effect of running with more prop out of the water and the prop grabbing water on the down stroke. Hydraulic steering will kill it for the most part but with a little tiller you can’t really mitigate the issue even with the anode fin adjustment. If the anode fin is out of the water it’s not really going to change anything.
I hope you guys are using Tefgel on those bolts, it will make everything last longer.
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Thanks for the tip. I installed just how you had suggested
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Yes I have a foreman for the 30 tohatsu. Which is a power tech that he modifies. I can say he nailed it first try. Just told him the boat and what I wanted it to do
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That’s the magic of Jack Foreman. He’s spent a lot of time dialing in his design - there isn’t much gray area left to debate. On the other hand, I’ve tested three props from another maker only to return back to the only prop Jack ever told me to run.
I’m glad that plate worked out - they really do make a significant difference when running jacked up. It also acts like a big trim tab, helping plane fast and adding some additional bite at the stern.
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