Holeshot Plate

[River Rocket]

I have been experimenting with a holeshot plate and skid planner for the last few months. I have tested with it in several different configurations: Hole shot plate parallel to the bottom of the jackplate, holeshote plate angled down,with and without wedges, big and small holeshot plates, with and without the skid planner, full gas, light gas, lower pitch props, and high pitch props. About the only thing I didn't test was loaded livewell.

In all the testing I found that on my boat a holeshot plate really doesn't do anything unless I'm running a 32 or higher pitched prop. A small plate that just larger than the jackplate did nothing, the skid planner out performed it and combining both didn't make a difference. The skid planner does it job until I put on the big wheels. With the big wheels and a large holeshot plate parallel to the jackplate I saw a little improvement. The real pickup came with a large holeshot plate angled down to push the nose down. Unfortunately when angled down the plate catches water at high speeds and starts to push the nose down around 90. The boat never felt unsafe, it just kept me from running over 90. My hope was that the plate would be fixed in place, but I had to take the Bailey approach and put it on an actuator to get it out of the way at speed.

Taking the clever Bailey approach I designed a large pivoting holeshot plate.

A big thanks goes to Steve Glenn at Hydrodynamics for all his support. It took me several weeks to model the back of the boat and his plate. Every time I thought I could get away without details I would run into an interference issue in the 3d model and ask him for more details on his plate. Many times late at night I would text him asking for more dimensions and he always responded. Great guy and plate. Thanks to Jay as well for helping take photos and videos of the back of the boat so I could see what was going on. Much of the work on this was done 1000 miles away from the boat. Jay ran over to the place I was storing the boat and took measurements if I needed something and also assisted in some crazy video taking trying to see what was going on with the plate at speed.

Hydrodynamics built a 12" plate with 2 degree of tuck and a few other tweaks to allow packaging of all the gizmos. In total I'm running 12.5" of setback around 3/4" to 1" over the pad. All the above testing was done at 10.5" of setback. FYI, I personally found no noticeable improvement going from 10.5" to 12.5". The additional setback was for the packaging the actuator only.

I plan to test in the morning. I have a 34 pitch bolted on ready to go!!

[River Rocket]

[Strokerdean]

Looks great, you do some fine work. I run the Bailey hole shot plate and have had the actuator toggle switch go bad and send the plate all the way down. My rig would run to the mid/high 80's and become very unstable, a real hand full to drive. Changed the toggle switch and fixed the problem. Your right about the 32 and larger props, it makes a huge difference especially with the 1.62.

[tritontr21]

It is a work of art! Also makes me glad I went with a 250/1.75 combo lol

[River Rocket]

Well, so-so results. I knew this one was going to take some work.

1. I don't have enough hands to operate it while under way. I have it wired into the switch plate instead of the hydraulic jack plate. I will need to move it over to the steering wheel and re-purpose one of my trim switches on the wheel. That or put in a floor switch. 5-85 times are super critical to set the boat early. With one hand on the wheel I can't do that. I believe time are off as a result of that.

2. I need to add in my timer circuit to automate the process. I didn't want to hassle with it, but now I see it will be needed. I will probably do two timers, one for up and one for down. Time it so that down is accomplished in two button presses so I can have different degrees of down. Up will be one button press.

3. Need to add dummy lights and switches so I know when it is up and down. I agree Dean, I don't want to find out at the wrong time it decided to go down. Gear up and gear down indicators would add some safety.

4. I believe full down may be too low. I think I'm dragging water too much. Its not an issue when running the 34 as it takes a while to get up and rolling. It does seem to help with the 34. My nose stays flat and level. On the 27 and 28 I tried today it didn't work well and I was better off not using it. The plate doesn't move fast enough to get out of the way and my 5-85 times take a hit as a result. The two stage down timer mentioned above should help that. I won't put it as deep with the smaller pitch props.

5. It is up high enough. I didn't have any of the issues I had before when it was mounted parallel to the jackplate.

I couldn't agree more Jay. The 250 is a beast of a motor out of the hole. Especially with 1.75's and you behind the wheel. Unfortunately, triple digits with a loaded boat requires 300. My 1.62's don't help.

[atcje]

Could a linkage be added that makes it work off the jack plate? As the JP comes up so does the hole shot plate.

[River Rocket]

I thought the same thing Johnny. My very first version did that. It hinged with the jack plate. It didn't work for me. For others it may. Jay and I hung off the back of the boat filming to see what was going on. I had a lot of adjustment in my linkage and couldn't get it to do anything. I even tried a version that hinged off of the skid planner.

1. my jack plate is wicked slow.
2. my hole shot sucks when the plate is all the way down. I have to be above the pad to get a good hole shot. Even with tall props and loaded, I have to be above or my boat is a turd.

[River Rocket]

Here is an earlier version with it attached to the skid planner and being driven with the jackplate. I was really stoked about this version, but it didn't work out for me.

[Strokerdean]

Geoff, I like the idea of the lights that would show up and down. I haven't done the timer but that should also cure to toggle switch problem (I may call Chris and check on it). My switch is in front of the left trim lever so it allows me to trim and raise the hole shot plate at the same time, takes 4 seconds for the hole shot plate to go form full down to full up. I don't usually run it in between and usually leave it up unless I'm loaded heavy or running a big wheel.

[catfish123]

Just curious if other boats like Bullets, or Strokers with 300 HP motors have similar holeshot issues? Anyone know?

[River Rocket]

Yes, Dean (above) has a Stroker

I’m trying to race my boat, so much of this is about making it quicker. The 300 does a good job of launching. Even my 300x labored with higher pitched props. That and I’m comparing to a 250 with 1.75’s as well. Gear ratio does help equalize the HP advantage.

[AllyFishing]

wow...pretty cool

[River Rocket]

Well the free Mic 6 aluminum I used for the main plate didn’t hold up. We suspected it may have issues. Didn’t take too long to show up. Too brittle for this application. Had two more plates made this week. One is a lower profile and the other is a clone of what I had. Both out of 6061 this time. Also added a cross support to stiffen it up and foot controls so I can operate while on the fly. Test more over the weekend.

[Cartes Custom]

Awesome work sir!!!

[minnowlimo]

Any new updates?

[River Rocket]

I race in two weeks and will be doing a bunch of prop testing this week and next week. I added a foot switch so I can bring it up while accelerating and still have two hands on the wheel.

So far, fully loaded it doesn't do a darn thing besides look cool (to some people). Even with a full tournament load. I have found wedges to be far more useful. The only pluses I have found to date are:

1. Its a great step for the kids to use when climbing in the boat from the water.
2. At 30mph and under I can lower it so I can be almost at neutral trim and not have a porpoise. Normally I would have to have the motor tucked almost all the way under. Should be very good for tubing and water sports.
3. I like the way my under water lights make it glow at night.

I will be pulling all the gear out for the races. I'm interested to see if it does anything when I'm super light with nothing in the boat. I also plan to remove it and see what kind of impact it may be have acting as a static plate. Maybe it is inherently doing something and I didn't see it, because I put it on when I went to the new jack plate with greater standoff.

[Strokerdean]

What type of racing are you referring to, Drag racing?

[River Rocket]

Yes

in two weeks we start the season. 800’ Radar run on Saturday. Single boat speed taken by radar at 800’ http://threelakesshootout.com/index.html

boat on boat 1000’ starts that weekend as well on Sunday. 10mph brackets. Starting at speeds up to 65, then 66-75, with braces all the way up to 115. http://www.umpba.org/classes-and-safety-rules/

[minnowlimo]

Those are some good looking plates you have made. I'm like you I would have thought bringing the plate up and down with jack plate would have been the ticket. I also would have thought it would have made a difference even in the smaller pitch props.good luck with race season and ill be looking forward to more progress and updates.