Any Good Books on High Performance Boat Driving Techniques?
 

I wanted to see if there are any books people can recommend on high performance boat driving techniques.

Michael

Here is a start..

http://www.mercuryracing.com/blog/hi...-introduction/

Like learning to drive a car, it starts out with classroom but the real deal is behind the wheel with real world stuff. Sign up fro Tres class or ask him to refer someone who might help you out.

Smitty

+1 Seat time is the real deal. What kind of boat do You have. Time behind the sticks an then school is JMO. Like reading a book if You don't know what they talking about it's hard to learn. Artie

While I'm no expert or professional, I have logged a lot of wheel time moving up from a 20 footer to my last 29 footer. Most of my wheel time has been in the ocean where you kind of have to learn fast, especially when trying to hang with some of the SCOPE guys!

Speaking of SCOPE, that is an excellent source of information. There are some very experienced members and some former and current racers. I've learned a lot from those guys and they are a fun group to hang out with too!

My last boat became second nature to me. I knew it very well and being a straight hull boat of limited power, it was extremely predictable and easy to drive. Some performance boats, like some performance cars are very forgiving while others, not so much.

My recommendation is to start slow and work your way up as you gain experience and knowledge. Don't go jump into a twin step boat with big power and start slamming throttles!

And just like car racing, you can learn a lot from reading what to do but nothing beats track time.

The old Reggie Fountain Powerboating Instructional Video is really good. It's from the early 90's but full of great information for a beginner. If I remember, it's about 3.5 hrs long.

I'm sure someone out here has one you could borrow.

Kurt

This might sound stupid but some people learn different than others, and for me nothing helps more than being next to somebody and watching 1st hand how it is done. I really dont think trim position, throttling, crossing waves, etc.... is something somebody, atleast myself could learn from a book. So, I say go out with somebody who has run hi-perf boats for awhile and watch what they do.

+1
And go out with different people -- in your boat, in their boat, etc.
There's more than one way to do something (back into a slip, get up on plane, etc).

I agree everyone with the "hands-on" benefit, but I also like to read about the "why", and I learn more if I've prepped myself. I guess that's my engineering mind speaking. :) I have taken helicopter and airplane flying classes, and booking up in advance really helped.

Michael

Here's the short version,haha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Qzsf6aZpk

Hey Michael, you're in our neck of the woods here, have you hung out with SCOPE before? Like someone mentioned, theres a lot of really good drivers in the club and some race drives as well, might be in your best interest to join. You've contributed a lot in the past on here about how to drive certain boats, I take it you have lots of experience in cats and vee's, just looking to sharpen the skills a bit? :) What kind of boat are you running now?