Low speed over steer??

[PTR52]

Hi All,
I am new to this great forum and to Bass boats in general. I have had several boats previously. Most everything between a 16 wooden lap strake outboard, through Jon boats, Mako and bigger 40 plus foot Sport fisherman. So somewhat familiar with boats.
I recently acquired an old but in reasonable shape, Ranger 350V w 150 Johnnie. Took her out for frist time last weekend and at low speed 12 to 1500 RPMs she had a continued wondering. Sorry speed gauge was not working. I could not keep a straight course.Tried even the smallest corrections and she would go way over. Tried to power up and get on plane. Hit 3200 and after the nose came up, she settled down and ran good, but had to chop throttle immediatly as my wife has MS and could not tolerate the slight bumping form small wake.
Not her fault, its the dieses. So continued the run at 1500 and the wondering continued.
I did not have the opportunity to see if relative high speed improved the situation. The boat has a single cable steering system which "seems" to be reasonable tight. Don't think its the steering system per say, more an interaction between motor and hull??My local mechanic says this is normal and to ignore it. she will be fine at higher speeds. Not sure I believe that line
Ideas or suggestions please and thank you.
Peter.

[cwilt]

It sounds like you are used to displacement hulls. Bass boats are planing hulls. I am pretty sure all bass boats wander at lower (not planed out) speeds. I have owned 3 all different boats, and they acted the same when plowing.

[MengRanger]

Yep, I had a lot of no wake areas and my boat would wander.

[dean c]

Sounds like bow steer. It’s going to require a pretty constant correction, and with an outboard that means lots of steering movement.

[PTR52]

Good evening Gents, Thank you cwilt, MengRanger and dean C for your comments. You all basically say the same, it is an interaction between the prop and the hull at low speed when in essence plowing vs planning. I called a Ranger dealer this morning and his cure was to install a hydraulic steering system. While this would mean the steering would be "lighter", I don't think it would make much, if any difference on the "wondering".

I hope to take her out again this weekend with Grandson and will open her up some ~3000 and after letting her plane out see how she steers. Then maybe creep up to WOT. My Johnnie mechanic says he strongly believes she will turn 5000 to 5500. This of course depends on his tuning of the motor and the wheel. The boat is NOT equipped with a jack plate, which I understand from other posts...maybe a limiter.

I am almost 70 so anything over 50 MPH will be more then sufficient thank you. Just don't want to "Dog" the motor. Will use GPS to record...and advise next week. Thank you again for your kindness in responding..Peter.

[Ranger354]

My 354V did the same thing when I originally purchased it back in 99. Would only do this at low speeds, while idling out of a cove or pocket. We installed a small jack plate (I wat to say 4" but boat is not here so I can't be sure) and that stopped the "hunting" during really slow speeds. Once on plane all was good. Hope this helps.

[Fishysam]

if you were to put the motor as low as possible it could fix the wandering at slow speed but it wouldn't behave quite rite at increased speed in both steering and efficiency