Got mine today. Cover looks pretty damn good.

HOLLYWOOD!!!

Congrats on another great race season Michael, oh yea and the cover of Powerboat looks real good too!!!

Morgan Haak
[email protected]

Nice cover Sir, and great write up.


Uncle Dave

Don't laugh I just got my copy yesterday! I looked everywhere for extra copies including 2 airports!

Nice cover i think the 30 skater is one of the best boats they ever built but i may be a little bias you think nice job mike looks awsome

I've seen the boat in person (before the upgrade) and its as nice as they get.

This thread has gotten somewhat sidetracked over the last month or 2 but I hope to post some more test data / results just after the new year. Making arrangements to bring her to Ben Robertson Sr. place (BAR) soon where we plan to work on a few more things that I'm unable to do here on my own. Things like back to back prop rotation tests and the fabbing up of a temp tunnel extension etc.

Stay Tuned...........

Looks like I might be dragging the boat to Ben Robertson @ BAR as early as New Years weekend to have the tunnel tab installed. I purchased the material last week & we've been communicating back & forth w/ Latham inorder to make sure we have everything we need. The material is 1" white Polyethelene which is a machinable yet unbreakable plastic. Like $300/ 4x8 sheet. Ben said he's fabbed up a few tunnel tabs for race boats using white Lexan which is very difficult to find & substantially more $$$. Piedmont Plastics is confident the poly will do the job.

Strongly considering losing my trim tabs & reusing the rams & pumps for the the tunnel tab. Thats what most of the communication, drawings & pics that have been exchanged back & forth w/ Latham have been about. For the type of boating I do (mostly lakes, rivers & intercoastal) I've rarely used the tabs much beyond load leveling & have never needed them to get on plane. Based on the fact we believe the added transom weight is a major contributing factor to the porpoising reusing some of the major components will certainly be a step in the right direction. It's feasible that the new tunnel tab may not weigh any more than the current 28" trim tabs I have now. Plastic vs. Alum + a tunnel tab only requires 1 trim pump.

Once the tab is completely installed (estimate 2 wks) I plan to join Ben for the testing where we will swap drive rotation & back to back the pointed nose cones one more time. My ultimate goal being finding the right combination of drive rotation, nose cone & drive height for optimum performance w/ minimal sacrifice in cruise ride quality.

Going to modify my sticks / controls to incorporate more drive trim options maybe the tab too. Currently I have one throttle mounted switch that moves both drives but as you know they don't always move the same amt up & down. Seperate switches for ea drive will allow me to sync them instead of having to take my hands off the wheel & use the dash mounted rockers.

Ben plans to reuse / adapt the trim tab indicator potentiometers that Trevor at Skater custom rigged to the new tunnel tab so it too will be a L.E.D. display within the same dash unit, just need a new 3 slot (2 - 1) face plate.

My boat came w/ Livorsi's wireless trim & tab switches on an Isotta wheel but I never used them. There seemed to be a big delay between depressing the button & actual movement which I never got comfortable with. I've since replaced my steering wheel w/ a custom wheel from Momo. It's not actually a marine wheel, similar to one we use in the race cars but I was able to adapt fairly easily. Not sure whether I'll reinstall the wireless system or not. The Isotta wheel is nice but between the flat bottom & egronomic grips it doesn't make a great boat wheel being that straight never seems to return straight.

hay nascat sounds good cant wait to see what the tunnel tab does im getting a set of props cut down to 15,5 and trying that wont be till end of january im really interested in the tunnel tab will be a ggod test keep in touch happy new year and may the new year rid us of our porpoise amen

Thats the one bad thing about hyd steering, the steering wheel doesn't always end up in the same spot. even with a balanced system.