posted 08-11-2003 02:37 PM ET (US)            

Here is what you need to do:

1. Evaluate the vertical position of your motor. Odds are that if a dealer installed it, it is too low and probably on the last hole. You need to adjust this up and see if it works. Whaler recommends that the AV plate be 0-3/4" above the boat bottom. Experience on this forum seems to say that you need to be 1-1.5" up. Small changes (like one hole) make a big difference so you need to experiment.

2. Look at your prop. If it is Al and not cupped much you should consider going to a higher performance prop with more rake and cupping. This will help your motor stay 'hooked up' and push the boat over the lump of water that you keep falling off of.

3. You have already added a fin, but this interracts with item #1. basically, when the boat is on a plane you need to have the fin just at the surface of the water, and not below it. This is normally #2 but you alrady have it.

Trim tabs come next (last). Basically these are to position the attitude of the boat into the waves and then being able to somewhat decouple the motor trim from the boat trim. However, you should try all the other steps above first. You may (and probably will) get the result you need and want.

I really got into this and now have become obsessed with boat trim. I'm going to look hard at trim tabs for by Dauntless 15 because I am curious and now I want the handling trim to be perfect and totally controllable. Part way there doesn't do it for me anymore, part of it is the problem solving. But, as my wife tells me, I'm half crazy anyhow so consider the source.

Read this thread - its on my boat that I repowered - where I went through this whole journey. You can solve this problem and it will work very well would be my guess.

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000664.html