What's the throttle man doing?
 

Excuse the complete beginner question. Watched all the usual fountain videos on driving, trim etc... cant find anything about what the throttlemans up to. In the race vids hes on and off the throttle, but i cant see the timing. One of the race commentators on an old Apache vid says, "he hasn't flaired it once", i assume he means when the things out the water, let it hit the rev limiter. I guess as you leave the top of a wave if your hard on it you drive the bow high and if you come off you nose dive... So whats he up to and what makes good/bad throttling?

cheers

francis

The throttle man backs off when the props come out of the water. A good throttleman rarely misses and keeps the boat flying level.

couldnt an electronic rev limiter achieve the same thing? or is the timing coming off the wave the skill? if so what/how... thx

A good throttleman backs off the throttles when the props break loose then eases back into once they catch the water again. There were no rev limiters back in the old days and a good throttleman will be better than a rev limiter. As important as throttling, they also set all the trim levels of the drives and tabs to run the boat straight and true and then adjusts everything for the turns. The tandem of driver and throttleman lets the driver focus on steering and watching the course.

A rev limiter can save someone from the odd mistake but they're not for continual use. You're basically shutting off the ignition to cylinders selectively at max rpm. Continually doing that is really hard on a crankshaft.

As far as timing, it's purely feel and experience. And alot of skill. Kind of like hitting a 95mph fastball. Not everyone can do it and few can do it really well. All you really have to do is head out into some waves and practice. Keep in mind- cutting the throttles too early drops the nose. That's not what you want to do when there's no water under there, like almost to the top of a swell. You also want to avoid powering off the top of the swell- that can get you nose-down as well. You ultimately want to avoid landing flat in the bottom between two swells and sticking the bow into the face of the next one. Speed comes into play here as well. Too slow can be just as bad as too fast. Kind of like jumping a ravine. You have to have enough speed to make it. Tabs play a big role as well. Most over-tab in bigger water. I've seen plenty of video of fast boats in moderate water "doing the slinky". They leave the wave and the boat follows a circular arch. You should land on the part of the surface you run on in almost all situations. If you're dropping the nose, you need less tab and possibly more trim.

See here-
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wJzF8vU6oag

Then here-
http://media.boatmad.com/gallery/v/m...che_2.wmv.html
(not a fair comparison- vid 2 is the best throttleman that ever lived)

great reply thanks very much

looks easy ;)

Chris explained it pretty well. The throttlemen can save your azz.. a rev. lim. may save your motors. A good T. men worth his (her) :) weight in gold. At time you might need to bump the power to fly over two "close" waves where as if you don't "bump" up the bow, the boat might just plow in and be stuffed. With twins .. the T. men can actually help steady the boat when it's roles at landing. Takes a lot of practice, experience, and trial/error time. I think it's more of a "feeling" then a learned skill. IMHO.. good throttleman feels the boat/motors/waves/roles.. etc.. and handle the sticks as second nature, not even thinking what to do.

Just watch John Tomlinson in the Bud boat when it is rough. It doesn't get any better than JT.

Furthermore, for those of us in our single engine "recreational" boats, especially those equipped with the vulnerable XR drive, things could get "interesting". If I don't throttle back my Fountain while it's airborne, when it lands, the torque from the motor and the prop will make the boat roll and get squirrelly upon landing, plus the outdrive can be damaged from all the on again/off again torque being placed upon it.

That second video shows a great difference in trim levels. The first part of the video Bob had that boat trimmed to run through the rough stuff smooth and true (and put on an unbelievable display I might ad). In the second part of the video you could see how he had it trimmed out for max speed and then they got caught off guard by the rogue roller (hence the launch straight up).