Quote:
Does this mean that for runabouts you want to shift some of the weight load towards the front of the boat and have a flatter angle of attack to the water? More wetted surface on the water and/ allow more lift from the rear by the cleaver prop and up thrust? Doesn't this get squirrly?
We have found with our runabouts (both marathon and closed course) that when running in the slop (waves) they tend to POP the bow up easy when hitting a roller. By placing the weight midship/forward it tends to calm this tendency down. I have seen some runabounds run 5 lbs. of lead right in the nose of the boat to make them carry well and lay down. You still want to be running only on the back trailing edge however down the straights so you have to experiment. Props can make a huge difference on how a runabout handles. But you still see people running both styles of props. The prop that pushes the boat STRAIGHT ahead from a thrust standpoint is what I prefer when setting up a boat for balance. This tends to give you a neutral set up that you can always go back to if things start acting strange. To much tail lift or bow lift from a prop can just make set up changes difficult. Yes to much tail lift will make a boat squirrly and can also cause them to spin out in the corners in sever cases. This is one of the reasons people tuck the gearcase so they can get hydrodynamic lift from the gearcase rather than the prop. Most Kelo record set ups run alot of tuck to get stern lift and relie of steeper tunnel angles to pack air to lift the bow thus turning the boat into a wing. I'm talking hydro class here. However trying to get this kind of set up thru a corner is a whole nother story. This is one reason the prop walkers that were so fast in the 1960's never fared overlly well in cuircut racing. They couldn't get them thru the corners. Fast as stink down the straights thou.