Steering... Is this normal?

[Xesvuli420]

the slower I go on my boat, the harder it is to make it go STRAIGHT. If I am going to the left, and I turn the wheel to the right to straighten it up, before you know it, I am vering right. Then I counter it back to left, and in a matter of seconds, here I come PORTSIDE!

I know what your thinking, NO I'm not over steering! The boat just doesn't like straight.

It doesn't seem to do it (or at least not as noticeable) at faster speeds, but when putting along at speeds slow enough to not plain, it is quite funny/challenging to steer.

Is this normal, or do I need to be inspecting something.

Thanks for your help guys

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

Normal

 

[ziggy]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

agreed, normal unless your having to turn the steering wheel with no reaction from the drive. then there'd be issue.
v hulls wander at low speeds. you'll get used to it. best advise is to fix your direction with a far away point. use little input to the steering wheel. when your familiar with 'your' boat you'll be able to anticipate it and counter steer before it happens. then you'll be able to go pretty straight.
fwiw. i went a long distance slow run across my lake w/o steering it. just to see where it'd go since mine wanders too. amazingly, i came out about where i'd intended to go.. wandered all over getting there though..

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

A set of Smart Tabs will get rid of 90% of that at least.Also greatly improve the handling at higher speeds.

 

[trumanlake]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

I normally drop the starboard trim tab all the way down. That improves the slow speed wandering.

 

[Xesvuli420]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

lol thanks guuys. I have noticed this for a while, but it really got me frustrated yesterday. When I got on the lake you couldn't see but about 6ft in around you due to the fog. So I used my GPS to get me where I needed to go. However I would think I was going left when i was going straight (because of the water) and I would turn to the right, before I noticed that I ws going extremem right. I can't tell you how many circles I did yesterday, but it was fun/challenging. The thing that really got me was once my GPS told me I was going in the correct direction, I would hold the wheel straight, but before long I would look down at my handheld, and I would be of course quite a bit.

 

[jkust]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

Like they said above normal without conterrotating props. You might have it worse than me but I now just hold the wheel straight and I sort of zig zag in a straight line and stopped trying to correct.

 

[Xesvuli420]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

Good to know. Thanks everyone

 

[Fisnfool]

Re: Steering... Is this normal?

When you get used to the slow speed steering you will be able to anticipate when to change form port to starboard etc before you over shoot the correction. We used to call this catching the drift.

Remember that at slow speed the prop thrust and rudder effect of the drive is less. So it takes more steering throw to correct.