paaka937

Hey guys-
Got a question for all you guru's out there. I have a 312 Fastech at Lake of the Ozarks (pretty rough water on the weekends for those of you not familiar with the lake). Had it out over the weekend and she rides ok but can't help thinking I could drive/tab/anything else my way to a more smooth ride on the choppy water. I am not looking for fast top end speed, just a smooth ride at a reasonable clip. Lately I have been leaving the drives in and bringing the tabs down to about 3 which seems to do a decent job of cutting through the waves with the boat running around 3000 RPM's going around 35-38 MPH. Anybody have any better suggestions/idea's? Also, with the drives in and the tabs down a bit what would be the top RPM's I should stay under to no do any damage to the engines/drives?
Thanks again for everyone's suggestion.

4mulafastech

Does your 312 have K-Planes or Bennett tabs?

paaka937

K-planes
Twin Merc 454 Mags bored out 30 over and Carb'd a while back

88242LS

Just buy it??

paaka937

Yea, upgraded from a 24 foot Liberator with a 502 cobra to the 312, drove it on a pretty easy going lake a few times before relocating it to the Lake of the Ozarks. Have been boating at the lake for 30+ years but not with a performance boat so this is all kinda new to me. Really enjoying it though.

sprink58

OK...being a 4 time Formula owner and having taken all 4 of those boats into some very rough "OPEN OCEAN" conditions...I'm have a little trouble understanding a 312 Formula FasTech experiencing "rough" conditions on an inland lake. Considering that the LOTO is about 90 miles long, has an average depth of 60~80 feet and has no significant depth fluctuation...I wonder...how rough could it be? Are we talking 3'~5'...or as much as 4'~6'?

Enjoy this 312 video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU7brK843oQ

Find a comfortable trim and speed...drop the bolsters...throttle up and get on top of that slop and let the hull do the rest

4mulafastech

The reason I asked is my 292 came factory with Bennetts and I upgraded to K-Planes. Big improvement.

In really sloppy water when I want (have) to take it slow (passengers onboard..) I will run with quite a bit of negative tab. This is around 5 on my mechanical indicators. Trim a little below neutral, but not all the way down. This keeps the nose from climbing too high and uses the full length and weight of the hull to cut through the slop.

Your best bet is just experience. Just try several different settings and see what works best. Be careful of too much negative trim/tab as this can cause bow steer. Sounds like a nice boat, enjoy!

4mulafastech

LOTO:
BIG boats + bluffs = washing machine

No pattern to the waves. Holiday weekends can get really rough.

Expensive Date

Lakes are worse than the ocean, and I run in the ocean more than a lake as stated it is like a washing machine at times very hard to time. That being said every boat is different and water always changes, but my 292 likes to run loose, neutral trim and very little tab if any just let her fly. But in rough conditions could never run 35-40 I must go faster to stay on top. Like said run different speeds find what works better than others

pondrunner

As has been said...I'd take open ocean broads with evenly spaced rollers any day over lake slop. Unpredictable and constantly changing with very tight spacing. The small fastechs (271,292,312) seem to NOT want to run slow. At 3000 rpm they are very azz heavy and tend to porpoise without the tabs full down. 3500 seems to be a much better ride and cruise speed, shifts the cg and levels out the bow. Contrary to a regular deep vee, I find that I'm not using as much tab in the rough and I actually use just a touch of negative trim with the drives. This is exactly what powerboat magazine said was the best way to counteract rough water with the 292. They mention nothing about tabbing deeper. I think if you tab/plane too deep with the fastech hull, it lifts the azz and helps nothing in the rough. Try allowing the hull to do the work and just tuck the drive in from neutral slightly. I've got to think the 312, 1000 pounds heavier would be a decent ride...I'm fine with the 292 on lake Ontario!