getting strakes installed

[Ribmaster]

ive got a 2o foot fisher freedom with a yamaha pro v 150. with a 15 and quarter 19 pitch .right now by my gps im getting fully loaded with just me on it 37 mph. can i expect at least 4 to 8 mph diff when i get the strakes.
its not a tritoon by the way and im getting inner and outer on both sides . they told us the needed to be welded 8 and half inches from the bottom of the toon. i have 23 inch toons bhy the way they said it didnt matter if they were 23 or 25 just wondering if anyone else has experiance with strakes thanks guys

 

[5150abf]

Re: getting strakes installed

RPM is more important that speed, what rpm are you pulling?

You may see 4 mph 8 seems alittle much but you never know, speed on water is elusive.

Are these factory strakes put on as the factory would?

 

[Ribmaster]

Re: getting strakes installed

yes there bently strakes but they said the pontoon was the same as theres and would work fine. right now i have a 19 p prop and am turning 4300 to 4500 rpm and can do 37 mph gps which is pretty fast for a pontoon i guess but i would like to achive around 440 or so and were installing them which will be a better job than the factory does i looked a several factory jobs and there welds are crap and some of them would be welded on both sides some wernt. my buddy has them on his 24 footer and it rides so much smoother being able to lift the toons up makes a world of diff.
my mechanic said i might have to go up in pitch once the toons come out of the water it will turn more rpms but we dont want to go over 5ooo rpms so i guess we will have to just play with the prop size he has some he will let me test

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: getting strakes installed

You need to prop that motor to run 5500 RPM's with a light load. You are lugging it badly now and performance will be way off..

 

[Ribmaster]

Re: getting strakes installed

well acording to the book the rpm range to run it in is from 4500 to 5500 at least thats what 2 mechnics told me the book said so i dont know ima look online here and see what i can find out and i never prop none of my motors full rpms i always run them somewhere in the middle they will last longer that way and i agree lugging them is bad too

 

[pdonohue01]

Re: getting strakes installed

I am new to pontoons and boating in general but when I was shopping for my boat at many different dealers several seemed to shy away from putting strakes on. One said that there is growing evidence that the stakes put lots of stress on the logs and he has seen cracks appearing on the logs above the strakes. Another dealer said that putting on an under-skin would actually improve the performance more than the strakes would. Both said they could put them on for me if that is what a wanted but offered their opinion to me. Now I don't know if any of that is true, but I figured I would pass it on.
Patrick