I bought my 260 w/o tabs. I ended up adding them after a few weeks. I run with a full tank and cooler most of the time with 2-5 people aboard. Means have made planing much easier, with less throttle. Also allows me to run really slow if necessary, buy burying the tabs. Also they do help in the rough. I used Lenco sport tabs on mine. Primarily for the sake of easy installation. I have been more than please with their performance. Do not confuse the lenco sport tabs with the cheesy OEM tabs found on other boats. Mine actually have more surface area than a k-plane 280 and are super fast reacting with the electric actuator.

Bottom line, do you need them? No. Are they worth the money? Yes!

yes email me some pics please, also some info like who it was labed by, if it has a removable shaft hub or welded hub and what size. [email protected]
thanks

The Hydro is too big. You need a 26 or maybe a labbed 27. With my 502 mag I run a labbed 26 hydro or a labbed 28 Bravo. The Bravo hooks up better but the hydro gives me more mid range speed. Both will get me to 72+ mph but the Bravo takes more work to get there.

I have a hydro 27 for sale or trade for a Bravo 30p, I'm running a Bravo 28 but I'm hitting 6k so time to step up. I also don't have trim tabs on my 280 and If I got on plane any quicker I'd have to supply neck braces for my passengers. This season has been the roughest I've seen Lake Huron in over 20 years. I've been out in everything from 2' to 8' and drive trim provided me all the control I needed. I will say this, I was caught in 3' to 4' and over 15 miles from the harbor, I would have liked to try tabs then. But it was the only time that I even thought of them. Would rather spend the money on more speed.

I think the 280 does not need tabs as much as the 260. I wish I had a 280 with tabs, and big power. :D

Here's a picture of my set up.


http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/...ps872bf350.jpg

Here is the difference in the Dana 900 tabs (17") vs. the Dana 1000 tabs (24")
http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/...ps86831091.jpg

Thanks for all the help guys. I got to take the boat out a few times. I could probably do without them most of the time but I'm sure they would help under certain conditions. I will probably add them in the future. Now the big question is how to mount them?? I'll put a call into Velocity and see what they say.

If you mount them flat its less forgiving if you tab tomuch so unless you have a fair amount of seat time put them on a angle more forgiving and steve will tell you the same thing.

Also if you have no steering wich i think you said you dont i would do that first even if you do the hyd over cable you can allways upgrade to full hyd later that will make the boat safer and handle better.