Printable View
im new to bassboats what is the best way to learn how to trim a boat properly i have a triton 186 sc with a 150 merc efi i love my boat but a little intimated with it when i get it up on plane as far as trimming , more speed,and slowing down any help on this would be great
Welcome to BBC!!!! To start off and get on plane trim your motor down. as you get on plane ease the trim up a little at a time and you will feel the bow start to come up. Don't trim to fast or you will porpoise. The faster you get the more up you can go on the trim. A lot of it you will have to feel and get used to how you boat handles. When you slow down ease down on the trim as you decrease speed. Just have to play with it until the boat feels right if that makes sense. Seat time is the best teacher...take it slow and adjust the trim back and forth and you will feel when the boat is trimmed happy......steering feels neutral, boat feels lighter, and motor isn't lugging.....check out the tips forum and look around. A lot of info here.
Trim it all the way under before you mash the throttle. Then, once you get up on top of the water, start bumping it up a little at a time. As you pick up speed and trim out, the bow will lift and the motor will spin more freely. When you get close to the sweetspot with your trim, you will actually hear the motor start revving higher and the steering torque should decrease significantly. These two things are not subtle - you will definately notice them. Heck, it almost sounds like my motor is shifting gears.
Once you get to this point, it's just a matter of seat time for you to get comfortable with your boat and how it performs at different trim settings in different conditions (rough water vs. calm, etc).
Be safe!
Fish...come hang out with us on the Triton board and you will learn a ton there as well. These two gave you great advice. You'll feel the "poirposing" as you come off plane if you don't trim down at the same time.(you're bow will be slappin' the pizz outta the water). Just remember since you've got a Triton, that if you get going at a pretty good speed and you raise that trim...you'll surely hit "chinewalk" which is the pad of the boat rolling over from side to side. Like a wobble. When, and i did say when and not "if", you get to this "wobble"...do not quickly let off the throttle...just trim down a bit until it stops. Control the chinewalk with the trim and you'll be fine. You can watch a video of chinewalk posted by Jim Maggart(smallmouthguy) on top of the Triton forum. Congrats on the new boat and we're glad to have ya aboard. http://www.bassboatcentral.com/boardstuff2/beers.gif
Welcome Aboard. You'll find plenty of useful info here.
As for the trim, like the other post said, it is really obvious. Just take it easy until you get comfortable with the boat and then start playing with it. The thing to remeber is anytime you get feeling uncomfortable and/or unsafe about what the boat is doing, slow down and trim down until you reach a comfort level. As you have more time behind the wheel you comfort level will increase.
http://www.bassboatcentral.com/boardstuff2/beers.gif
I have only had my bass (Fish & Ski) boat for about a year, and always had problems trimming it out until my last outing. I was alone (no wife with me) so I was able to play a bit more than usual. Normally I would trim under, then take off and mash the throttle wide open, then start trimming up when on pad. I would fight through the porposing, and would hit about 63 gps. (21' Skeeter SL210, 200 Yamaha VMax HPDI). At that point the steering would tighten up and I had to trim back down a bit to get that comfortable feeling.
The last time I was out, the water temps were down, so I know that helped performance. Anyway, I experimented and found (for me) the proper way to trim.
I trimmed under, then only went about half throttle. Once the boat was on pad and about 35mph, I started trimming up. Normally I trimmed to about 1/2 way on the trim gauge, but at half throttle I was able to continue to trim with no porpising. The further I trimmed, the higher the rpm/speed got, and I began to (for the first time) show a rooster tail. I continued to trim until the rooster tail reached the top of the engine cowl, and the engine rpm and boat speed came up drastically! The boat handled like a dream and felt like it was almost out of the water. I then was able to continue to throttle up until I ran out of guts, fearing finding the rev limiter.
The best that I had gotten out of the boat prior to that was 65mph GPS. I hit 70.5 GPS that day @ 6100 RPM. For a bone stock F&S I was very happy.
My point is sometimes you just have to experiment to find what your boat likes. We have fought this boat with a porposing problem since the day we purchased it. I suspect that I may have solved part if not all of that problem by determing what my boat likes.
Hope that helps.....
Jeff
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AmesHusker »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Trim it all the way under before you mash the throttle. Then, once you get up on top of the water, start bumping it up a little at a time. As you pick up speed and trim out, the bow will lift and the motor will spin more freely. When you get close to the sweetspot with your trim, you will actually hear the motor start revving higher and the steering torque should decrease significantly. These two things are not subtle - you will definately notice them. Heck, it almost sounds like my motor is shifting gears.
Once you get to this point, it's just a matter of seat time for you to get comfortable with your boat and how it performs at different trim settings in different conditions (rough water vs. calm, etc).
Be safe!
</TD></TR></TABLE>Just to add a note, in rough water you can trim down and smooth out the ride, of course to rough means slowing down and being safe. http://xs-s.com/zf/images/smile/emthup.gif