Boat won't go straight...help
 

I've got a 1999 Mariah Z212 with 5.7L carb and Alpha 1 turning a 19 pitch stainless mercury vengeance prop. When the boat is just in gear and creeping thru a no wake zone it will not go straight. It keeps veering from side to side, and I need to keep turing the wheel to try to keep it on course. Any idea what causes this. BTW, same thing happened with a 21 pitch stainless prop. Thanks in advance.

grab your drive from the back and wiggle it..if it wiggles its time for a gimble repair. its not that hard of a fix and theres a kit to do it.

It's called bow steer and happens on most single engine v-bottoms. Low pressure pulling the bow left and right with no rhyme or reason. I try to always be in some huge radius turn. Seems to help a bit.

That is normal, bow steer or 'yaw'. If you have trim tabs, drop them all the way. That will help. Nothing's wrong, but it is annoying as hell.

Deep V's all do this to some degree or another. My old 18' Formula and my newer 30.5' Twin Fountain does it, (full Hydraulic steering with tight gimbals), older non-step hull.

I get the boat more or less straight and then let it swing back and forth, trying to get the "center point" of the swing in the straight line direction of where I want to go. Then there is less "steering input" required, but sometimes the swing in one direction is more than the other and slight correction to the wheel is required.

I have never heard a civil explanation of 'hunting', which is the technical description of the phenomenon. I can tell you this. All O/b and sterndrive small boats do it to some extent. I have run some that hunted so far, that it was easier to finish the circle than correct it. My 19' Nova with a sterndrive was a bad one. Same boat, same engine, V-drive with rudder: none! Go figure............

It should be less pronounced if you trim the drive up.

What he said...

ow my ribs:D what I was meaning that when I go through idle zones or minimum wake (around 7mph) I drop the tabs all the way. Then the bow doesn't really sway from side to side.

Can't help myself, maybe lay off the beer. Works for me.