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Opinions on hydrofoils

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boatn_new_b

Member
"Hello all. I recently purcha

"Hello all. I recently purchased a 2006 Bass Tracker 170TX with 40 horse 4 stroke merc. Was just curious about hydrofoils and would like to hear any feedback on experiences with. Any distinct advantages, disadvantages. New to the Mercury side of outboards as what little experience I've had was with rebuilding a '79 115 horse Johnson for my brother (with the help of this great site!) Thanks, Jonathan Taylor"
 
"do you have power trim, if ye

"do you have power trim, if yes there is no need for the fin.
Does the nose of the boat stay up, if not then there is no need.
My opinion the foil slows the boat by producing drag. It also creates extra force on the engine and transom."
 
I test drove one of those a wh

I test drove one of those a while back and found it to be under powered. There isn't a whole lot you can do except make sure the boat is properly loaded and the motor trimmed properly. I agree with JB about the foils. If you feel you really need something like that look at the Smart Tabs. They cost more but are far superior.
 
"Thanks for the input, JB&

"Thanks for the input, JB&IBNFISHN, yes it has power trim. I think the boat planes out fine and according to the speedo it hits approx. 27 mph. My dad was thinking a foil would pick up speed, get on plane quicker,and so on and so forth. The lakes I fish are'nt too big and I don't tournament fish so I'm not in that big a hurry anyway. Happy boating, Jonathan Taylor"
 
If your boat upon accelleratio

If your boat upon accelleration lifts the bow high befor it gets over the hump and levels out on the plane a hydro foil will fix that and make your boat behave alot better...however if your boat lifts its bow slightly as its gets on the plane fitting a hydofoil will turn a good boat into poor handlling one
 
"They can also break the cavit

"They can also break the cavitation plate, which was not designed for such loads. Seen it a zillion times.

Jeff"
 
"I used to run a large 18ft de

"I used to run a large 18ft deep V offshore runabout with a 115 Mercury inline. Power was shall we say, adequate when loaded.
I had some brand of hydrofoil on it and it allowed a slightly lower planing speed and helped to trim the boat with less trim angle when heavily loaded. The boat had 140 litres of fuel in two tanks along the keel of the boat, when forward 80 litre tank was full, it needed more bow up trim and teh foil helped achieve this with less trim and yeilded slightly better performance when running with a full front tank.
I see hydrofoils as a trim aid, but only a fine tuning device. Don't expect them to help when teh boat is grossly out of trim fore and aft, the best trimming tool a boat operator has available is moving load around.
However, if you have a changing load (like my fuel issue) they can be of good benefit.

Regards, Andrew."
 
"I've run the thing a few

"I've run the thing a few more times now and moved the trim while planed out to experiment. It seems to do just fine, provided I could get the wind to not always blow and make fricken whitecaps all the time. I think I'll stay away from the 'foils. Thanks, Jonathan Taylor"
 
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