Since this came up in a different thread recently (and I've always just been curious), do any of you guys keep your Skaters on floating lifts such as Hydrohoists? Both my inboard 30 and my outboard 28 stay down at my docks on centermount hydrohoists, making it very easy to measure the CG of each boat. Once you have the boats out of the water and the lift is sitting perfectly level, the measurement from the transom to the center of the floats on the lift gives you the center of gravity of your boat. With very little fuel in each of my Skaters, the measurement to the CG point on my 30 is 80" - which equals 21.74% of the length of the boat forward of the transom. The 28 measurement is 68" - which equals 20.24% of the length of the boat forward of the transom. The higher the percentage #, the further forward the CG is and the better the boat will run in the rough. I've done everything I can (without ADDING weight) on each of my boats to get the CG further forward for better rough water handling, being that they're both smaller Skaters. I'm curious as to what your guy's Skater's CGs are? Please list model length and motors/drives - my 28 has 3.2XSs on 6" brackets and my 30 has Sterling NA 588s w/ ASD7s.

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would love to know where mine is but I do know that I agree 100 percent on the further forward the better. A properly set up 28 is blast in the rough water. We do it all the time down here!

Have you got a weight on your 28 yet Ron?

My Cg is pretty far forward. I have 525's on 28" shafts on a 32b bravo boat. Cg is just forward of center of gas tanks. The boat flies very flat.
Steve

Not yet. Have a plan just need to get the boat down to Supreme Marine. I will do it before the engine swap over. I plan on weighing it just how I run it with all gear, fuel etc on board. I can back out the fuel based on the gallons on board which i have a dipstick for.

Ron, how does the "dip stick" work? Where do you insert it?

David
What I did was when the boat came out of the water and there was a scum line where the waterline was i took a level and adjusted the jack on the front of trailer until it was level. Pumped a tank out using the fuel line going to the motor. Once it ran dry we knew where empty was. On the top of the tank where the pick up is there is a pipe plug for a second pick up. We removed the plug and dipped the tank with a rod to mark 0 gallons. Then filled the tank at 5 gallon intervals until full marking the dip stick along the way. It works great. I check the the full every time when I get back and compare it to the smartcraft. The mercury system is pretty close on what I actually use. I did find one motor uses about 5 gallons more every time out. Hope this helps.

I'd bet that the CG of your 32 is very similar to that of my 30. My 588s weigh about the same as your 525s (800#s apiece - I weighed them at Skater), our drives weigh about the same (just over 300#s for both a complete Bravo 1 or ASD7) and I am also on driveshafts very similar in lengths to yours. I was VERY aware of CG when my 30 was being built, as I run in some pretty big waters at times in the Pacific Ocean.

Nice pic there Dale