I was reading and looking at some different pics of both the 25 OL and 26 OL. I know my transom has a notch at the lower half of the transom and also looked at an '08 26 OL with straight transom. So my question is...Are all the fountain 26 OL not notched or just all the 26 OL period? Second, what effect does this have on performance?

To confuse the issue, some 25's have a notch, some don't. For what it's worth, I was told by a dealer they went to a notched transom on the 25 looking for an extra mph and it made no difference on that hull.

All of the 26's have a straight transom.

I think there are only a couple 98' 25ol's that do not have the notch on them, that were ever built. Anyway I never thought they made any difference, much like the long notches in the sides/chine we called "Speed Rails" The only thing that I noticed was it made it harder for the lamination department to do a nice job laying-up the boat? The 272/275 hull is the same overall design, only w/o the "Gimmicks" and it runs just as well. IMO

XT

I have wondered about that myself. Correct my if I am wrong, but the notch wouldn’t do much good without a higher X dimension to take advantage would it?

Right! I just think a 25 footer dosn't have a long enough running surface to shorten it in any way for control. I would rather see 380S K-planes on the transom to add length. Same go's for stepped bottoms on shorter boats IMO?

XT

So in order to take advantage of the notch is raise the drive? Is this what I am understanding? How would a higher drive height make the notch more noticable than no notch?

It is my thought that the notch is there to simulate the drive being further back in cleaner water, but if you have the prop stuffed too deep in the water then there would be no advantage. Again I am asking if my thoughts are correct. I am very interested in learning all I can so that I make better choices with my own boat when it comes to improvements.