Trim / Tab Settings for 3+ Footers?
 

My experience in 3+ footers is very limited.

What have you Twin Step hull owners found to be the best settings to keep the boat in the water and smooth as possible?

Trim it near where you normally do and add enough tab to keep it going level. No moon shots. Try to skip across the top 10 percent of the swells. If you don't trim it enough you will hit all the faces.
Have fun,
Jim

Normally in light chop, I run the trims and tabs at '3'. So basically leave the trims around 3 and adjust the tabs down until the boat is near level?

Would trimming in/down also help?

Thanks.

Makes sense. Thanks Mark.

If you want to get more specific you can string line the bottom from forward step out the stern and find dead nuts level on the drives and mark your indicators. You should trim so the boat runs clean, that is usually somewhere close to level on the drives, depends on boat, load, balance and props. If you are not trimmed enough the boat wont carry across to the next swell. The trim directs the boat where you want it to go and the tabs send it there as level as you want it. Trim carries the bow, tabs lift the stern when you fly the boat. It is such a fine line to get it perfect and you can't tap the buttons quick enough to do as fine adjustment as it sometimes needs. When it's right it skips across the tops and doesn't fall in between. It is only learned in hours and hours of practice.
Jim

Thanks Jim. I think I now understand the idea based on whay you and Mark have described, but implementing will be another story! :D

Thanks again guys.

I dont know how anybody can say one way or another. This is certainly a case by case example of "what feels best to you." All depends on how fast your runnin, current weight, drive setting, etc. All I can say is that my little boat likes to run fast and level over the tops of 2 foot chop. I usually keep my drives at 3-3.5 my tabs like to stay around 1 or 2 in light chop and anything at 3 or above really tends to bury the nose a bit much for the occasional roller.

I appreciate the info, too. New larger boat and have a definite learning curve to get it right. Way different than my 32. I have never had trim and tabs use described this way and it totally makes sense. Thanks.

Great explanations above. Also depends on the type of water and speed. 40 mph in 3' big lake chop is way different than 70 mph in widely spaced 3' swells. General rule of thumb I go by is to keep the drives level and use as little tab as possible to keep the boat level.

It all depends on the speed you are going, the boat size and the type of so called 3' ers you are running. There is not 1 answer for this.

On my smaller 23' hull, I prefer to keep the tabs fixed at 2-4* negative,
and utilize the drive trim to control the hulls attitude.

As already posted, their is no one setting, depends on Load in the boat, fuel, passengers, gear, following seas or running into them, or quartering. The object is to stay on top of the chop, use enough tab to keep the boat level, and not have the bow digging in. No matter what trim settings you use, if you are not carrying enought speed to keep you from falling between the swells it wont ride smooth. It will be a matter of experience, take you time and work up to speed until you gain confidence in what the boat will do.

First of all tab settings 3 is not necessarily the same on all boats you need to set your drive and tabs to neutral while on the trailer and mark the indicators and use that as reference. All cables are capable of different adjustments to give different readings.

I run the drives at 2 and the tabs at 4 but this is a case by case basis

On a twin step if you tuck the drives in (-) remember to bring them to neutral before you turn. Neutral is when drives are Vertical to the imaginary line from the bottom of the first step to the transom this is your running surface.You should be able to run this boat in most cases at neutral trim and bring the tabs down.Try to turn with negative (in) trim and boat can spin.Oh and wear your kill switches