Help with Lifting Strakes

[Cuttymcgavin]

Hey everyone, I was interested in the Pontoon Waterglide until I saw they jumped up to almost double the price. So now I have been researching the Strakes. Does anyone have dimensions on how long they should be and how wide, I have two 23 inch diameter tubes and want to put the strakes on both inside and outside of the toons. When I am underway I plow in the front but the stern actually lifts a little and the bottom of the toons are almost on top of the water, so I dont think putting the starkes all the way to the back would help, however that is ahy I am posting for some help. I called Godfey (actually Nautic Global Group) for some help and they can only set me up to talk to the people in the warrenty division, go figure. Please give me some feed back I would like to fabricate these and test it out before this season is over.

 

[Water logged]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

The strakes should run almost full length of to pontoons. Don't know about add on strakes, they came on mine as standard feature.

If you are plowing in the front and the rear is lifting up, you are not properly trimmed. You have the motor too far down and it is pushing up on the back.
You neeed to kick the bottom of the motor out a little. Easy to do if you have power tilt/trim. More difficult without power feature. Maybe someone else with knowledge of you motor can help with that.

It would help if we knew what your boat/motor are..

Glenn

 

[Rancherlee]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

The stern lift at speed is more than likely from your transom pod getting pushed up by the wake created between toons and the transom trying to climb up on top of it. This also pushes the bow down. Strakes may or MAY NOT help on your boat. If you have enough HP to push the boat fast enough to overcome the "wake" and get up on the strakes you will be good to go. Just a 3rd pontoon did wonders on mine, went from 22mph to 27mph with just a 3rd pontoon added since it streamlined the water flow as mine had a poorly designed transom that REALLY lifted the stern.

 

[Cuttymcgavin]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

Yeah sorry, I thought it would show my boat and engine whenever I posted. Its a 1993 22' Parti Kraft with a 1988 115hp Mercury Tower of Power. I try messing with the trim but it doesnt do much at all, I thought my engine was too low to and I have tried many different heights only to find out that I cavitate when I go up one bolt hole so it is back down as low as it can go. I was thinking the same thing as Rancherlee cause my transom is the older type with a flatter bottom, I was thinking it would act like a ski from the wake of the toons. I brought it around asking many opinions but everyone kinda shrugged off the idea and not thinking it was the problem. I was thinking of having a weilder fabricate a pitch that would cut through the water in place of the ski type part of the transom. What do you think is the best, 3rd pontoon, waterglide or lifting strakes. We should rename this topic 3rd toon vs. waterglide vs. lifting strakes.

 

[cc350]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

Sounds like the front of the pontoon is just to heavy. Maybe look at getting more weight to the rear of the toon.

 

[Cuttymcgavin]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

I thought the same thing cause when I purchased the boat it had about 3-4 feet of open bow in the front. When I re did it I layed out the furniture just like the new boats and placed it all the way up front and now have like 5-6 inches of open bow. So I moved the whole engine transom back to try and counter balance the weight. I got rid of the 60 hp 3 cyl and replaced it with 115 hp 6 cyl, almost double the weight. I was thinking of adding more weight to rear but when I sit in the water the water line is pretty high on the back of the toons, until I am underway.

 

[lmuss53]

Re: Help with Lifting Strakes

http://www.pdbmagazine.com/fusetalk...d=24444&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

Here is a link to a post I have on another sight. I don't like linking to another sight but there is a lot of information there on doing this kind of project yourself.

I am about ready to declare my project a success, as soon as I get a couple of good long runs in with the tach working and the engine back to running right. Once I've done that I can finalize my prop choice and put up some solid numbers on performance.