Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

The oil companies certainly need the money, don't they? :rolleyes: Missouri refunds road tax for fuel used offroad. I stand to get a much bigger refund this year.... :D

The boat will be on a lift most of the time at our dock, but I would love to have a 2500 Duramax!

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

Ummm... just one thing.
I started with cruisers and worked back to performance.

A skinny boat with twin I/Os simply can't do some of the tricks that fat twin IBs can do. The props are way farther back, closer together and you have no separate rudders. (required for the "sideways" move. sorry)

The experience you had with the last boat will help you in the long run, and you will get the hang of what you can and can't do with twin I/Os. But you will be disappointed if you expect to pull sideways off of a pier or turn 360 in one place.
Your new boat will turn on an axis that is forward of what an IB cruiser can do.

I'm guessing that you have counter-rotating drives on the new boat. You will find that one will "walk" one way, and the other will "walk" the other way in reverse. My bet is that you end up using one more to pull alongside with your SB, and the other to pull alongside with your port.

Now.... go buy some gold chains and some cool sunglasses.
You are a performance boater.

You will also need the theme from Miami Vice on MP3 so it doesn't skip. :D

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

CoBerry, welcome to the club. We also came from 20-23 footers into a longtime dream.

Chart and RonP are dead on. Know your neutral positions for drives/tabs and make it second nature hitting those buttons correctly. We are running a stepped/notched hull and have taken our progression into speed very slow. Still a ton to learn like yourself and we will be loving every minute of it.

Now post some pic's, it was 18 degrees here this morning and I need a boat fix.

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

put up some pics CObarry.... it is always nice to see another performance boat on LOTO, i was getting worried that everybody was buying 50+ sea rays.... :rolleyes: :D

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

That's real nice of you. Be happy to accept your offer. But, we need to do it at the far end of the lake, since you have a boat that can get there easily now! :D

The notched transom makes a difference in performance characteristics at an engineering level, but NOT in the way that you drive it.

Non-stepped hulls are easy and forgiving to drive. Only thing to remember is not to enter into a high speed turn with the drives trimmed out much. You most likely won't get hurt, but the props will probably loose their bite and that's hard on equipment. Set the drives neutral or trim in and you'll carve through the turn hard enough to understand why the bolster is so tight! :D Stepped hulls handle differently, and using the same technique can throw you into the water. That brings up another good point: The kill switch lanyard: Wear it.

Yep. Doesn't hurt much at normal speeds, just shows everyone else you don't know how to dial in your boat. Can be caused by several factors, and some hulls are more likely to do this than others. Basically, your props are trying to pick the bow up out of the water, and then the weight of the bow overcomes the props and the bow comes down and it starts again. Usually happens when you are trimmed out too far for your speed. It will happen going over waves once or twice, but if does not settle down, then you are porpoising. Like a big car with worn out shocks.

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

50+ Sea Rays on LOTO.... :mad:

Here are some pics....

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

More good advice...thanks!

The props are currently set up to rotate out (looking towards the top of the prop)...based on everything I've read they'll stay that way....

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

I think most boats are like that, but if your boat is wired like my 336 (and 272 before it), it will be opposite of this. Pushing the forward rocker or top of the buttons will raise the drives or tabs and pushing the bottom or back of the button will lower them. It can be a little tricky at first. I had a couple of times where I had the boat leaned over a bit and pushed a tab in the wrong direction and then wasn't sure what to do. That was with my 272 without indicators and I had to just slow down to idle to get out of the turn. The rule I use is that if the boat is not running level, push the tab up (forward rocker) on the side of the boat that's up or high, or down (aft rocker) on the side that's down It's counterintuitive at first, but when you do it a few times, it becomes second nature. There's nothing more nerve wracking than running at 40 with a tab all the way down and the boat leaned over and going into a turn that you can't control or figure out. Unless it's having your family on board and a wife saying "What the hell are you doing!!!", and your answer is "I have no idea!!" I haven't done that with the 336, but did it a couple times with the 272, once on the test drive. LOL. Practice on a weekday before heading out and battleing the weekend crowds.

While tabs are often run independantly to level out the ride, you always trim the drives together. The switch on the throttle runs the drives together and is like the rocker buttons, up trims the drives out, down trims them in.

As for porpoising, I find the 336 hull to be pretty stable. My 272 would porpoise at cruising speeds enough that you had to drop the tabs just a bit to give the boat more running surface. The 336 seems to be better balanced and is pretty forgiving.

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

Re: OK, I bought my first offshore performance boat; now what?
 

or just mimic this guy. Wait, it's a Formula, not a Fountain. :D :D