posted 06-23-2005 11:57 AM ET (US)        

I installed a set of 12”x 9” Trim Master Hydraulic Trim Tabs on my 1991 Montauk this Spring. After using them for twenty hours of operation, I can definitely say that this was the best money I’ve spent on any boat to improve the comfort and handling. The undignified porpoising at WOT, gone with a touch of a button. Pounding when crossing a wake, gone. Dragging a six year old around in a tube at transition speeds, no problem. Not slamming your wife into the center console in rough water, priceless. This is the first piece of equipment that my wife actually appreciated after she noticed how much smoother the ride was in the Montauk.

Operating a small boat with trim tabs is not a passive activity. Between steering, throttle control, motor trimming and now Trim Tab adjusting there is lot of fine tuning that you can control. Besides eliminating porpoising, I really like the ability and control trim tabs offer to setup to cross the wake of a vessel you are over taking. Likewise if you are crossing a wake, just hit the buttons lowering the bow so that the mid-ship keel just starts to cut the water. The boat will slow a little as the stern lifts and more of the boat comes in contact with the water. In most cases just activating the trim tabs is enough to slow the boat a little to make crossing the wake comfortable, you do not need to throttle back or re-trim the motor. Once you cross the wake just retract the trim tabs, and the boat jumps back to its former attitude and you are off and running.

With trim tabs the bow of the boat and the keel actually soften the impact, by moving the water of the wake out of the way making a path for the boat to cross. In addition, when the trim tabs are activated the stern is riding higher on the water, allowing the boat to follow the path of the bow over the wake, not plowing through the wake. The trim tabs make the boat feel and perform like a much larger boat in rough water.

Without trim tabs I found that the boat was stern heavy, even at speed. Hitting a wake at speed, even with the motor trimmed in, was like hitting a log or a rock. The impact with the wake seems to take place all the way back by fuel tank under the seat, which is a pretty blunt section of hull. Little water is displaced to the side, so the boat plows through the wake or jumps the wake depending on speed.

A word of WARING, adjusting trim tabs on a Montauk is a delicate process. This is a case were a little is good and more is not always better. Slow adjustments are better than fast adjustments. You need to use short bursts on the controls, when activating the trim tabs. You need to read the water and plan ahead making the adjustments and allowing the boat to respond, before you go flying into a substantial wake or wave. The Montauk is not a heavy boat, when you start applying hundreds of pounds lift to the stern the boat will respond quickly. As the speed of the boat increases, so does the sensitivity to making adjustment to the trim tabs. I was reading some earlier posts that brought up concerns about the dangers of over trimming a Montauk at speed. Well from my experience, those concerns are justified. Given the correct water conditions, too much speed and too much trim; this boat could submarine bow first just like an off shore racing boat. Too much trim to port or starboard at speed, will cause the boat to list and change course and it will affect your ability to correct it through steering.

Trim Master is not as well known as some of the other major brands, but they make a really nice, high quality unit. The helm switches are some of the best marine switches I have seen; they are heavy duty and water proof. All the wiring is heavy gauge and full tinned copper. All of the screws and trim tabs are stainless, the hydraulic cylinders and lines are composite material. The system comes with a lifetime warrantee against defects, for what its worth. I very pleased with the purchase and even more pleased with the price. The entire system was only $279 and shipping was less than $20.00. The same unit is $411 direct from Trim Master. I bought the system on-line from River Marine Supply out of Miami. River Marine Supply even sent me a follow up email, six weeks after I made the purchase to make sure I was satisfied and offered assistance if needed. That was refreshing. I did look at other trim tabs both hydraulic and electric, but in every case the prices were running $100 to $200+ more than the Trim Master unit from River Marine Supply. Like I said, this is a very nice unit.

http://www.rivermarinesupply.com/xcart/catalog/product_10858_Trim_Master_Hydraulic_Trimtab_Kit.html

A few issues I needed to be overcome during installation of the Trim Tabs.

1) Where to mount the hydraulic pump? I was going to install it in the center console, but that is prime dry space. Plus the kit did not come with enough tubing to run it to the console, I think it came with 20 feet total. My solution was to buy an additional battery box and mount the pump unit inside the box. I mounted the new battery box on the starboard side of the stern, the opposite of the actual battery which is on the portside. I lined the inside of the box with 3/8 inch Super Soundproofing Thermal Insulator, applied with 3M spray adhesive to minimize the noise of the hydraulic pump. The new battery box had enough room left over in it to also mount an air horn compressor. I mounted the horns on top of my fuel water separator bracket on the starboard gunnel, since it was wasted space anyway.

Super Soundproofing Thermal Insulator is a great product. I used the 3/8 Foil covered version to line the motor cowl of my 1991 Johnson V4. It lowered the mechanical noise of the engine dramatically. At cursing speeds, 4000 RPM, the wind noise is louder than the motor, and I run the motor without an air silencer on the carburetors. The foam liner that Johnson and Evenrude used in these motors did nothing to lower the sound of the motor. The only issue I had with the foil faced product was that it shorted out an aftermarket Head Temperature sensor I have on the motor. This was not a big deal, I just placed a rubber cap over the senor and problem solved.

http://www.soundproofing.org/cgi-bin/cart.pl?

2) Where to mount the trim tabs? The trim tabs mount along the contour of the semi-V-bottom of the hull, but they have to be at least 8 inches from the prop. I measured 10 inches from the center a long the bottom of the semi-V-bottom to both port and starboard. This gave me the correct placement of the inside edge of the tab, the tab runs from this point to just past the first strike on the hull. 95% of the tab is in the water flow when extended less than 50 %, when the tab is extended 50% or more then 100% of the tab is in the water flow. When the tabs are fully retracted, the tab lifts about a quart inch above the water flow. So if you want to relive the good old days; you can retract the trim tabs and porpoise to your hearts content.

3) How to mount a flat stainless steel trim tab hinge to a transom that is exactly flat? On my boat the motor mounting “the reinforced” section of the transom sticks out about a quarter inch further than the rest of the transom. I fabricated a spacer that matched the hinge, I used quarter inch thick structural aluminum to make this spacer. 4 inches of the trim tab hinge screws into the reinforced part of the transom and the remaining 8 inches has the quarter inch spacer behind it which screws into the fiberglass hull. To seal the screw holes below the waterline, I mixed two part structural epoxy with glass beads to make a paste and dipped each screw into the paste before installing them into the fiberglass.

4) After the trim tabs are mounted, as described above, the hydraulic cylinders have to be mounted. Using the measurements above, the hydraulic cylinders, will mount to the reinforced section of the transom. The hydraulic cylinders are a thru the hull design, a small brass pipe is threaded to the hydraulic cylinders which goes through the transom. The holes for the hydraulic lines end up being in the splash well, but are a few inches from the bottom so they stay out of the water. The kit comes with a good gasket for the upper part of the hydraulic cylinders to make it water tight, but I still put marine grade silicone in the holes to make sure water stays out of the transom core. The one thing I did not like about the installation was the brass pipes coming through into the splash well. They just looked like pipes coming through the transom and did not look clean or finished; since the holes were a little bigger than the pipe. To clean it up a little, I took a half inch stainless steel washer and drilled it out to the outside diameter of the brass pipe and slide it over the pipe covering the gap between the transom and the pipe. I again used silicon to seal the hole and hold the washer in place.

Installation was not hard, but it did take six hours or so. Most of the time was spent preparing the battery box, making the spacers out of the aluminum, finding a place to mount the switch, and checking and rechecking the placement of the trim tabs. Once I started drilling holes in the boat it took less than two hours to finish. I did give the epoxy and silicon a few days to fully cure before putting the boat in the water.

http://www.trimmaster.net/

http://www.rivermarinesupply.com/xcart/catalog/product_10858_Trim_Master_Hydraulic_Trimtab_Kit.html

Best of luck to those who take on this project, I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprise with the results.

Sorry I do not have any picture to offer you.

posted 06-23-2005 08:21 PM ET (US)            

http://www.soundproofing.org/cgi-bin/cart.pl?

http://www.trimmaster.net/

David

posted 06-23-2005 10:11 PM ET (US)            

Your experience matches mine with tabs. They give you so much control over the attitude of the hull to the water, and make the trim of the motor to the water much more independent of the hull attitude.

I, like you, was amazed at what this did for rough water handling.

The net net of it all is that you can essentially make your boat ride (at times) like it is 5' longer on the water line, and then back to its 'native' length at other times - what ever works best.

J.

posted 06-26-2005 10:40 AM ET (US)            

In my case, I chose the Lenco's since the installation was easier. They are electric and there is no hydraulic pump to install. There is also no oil resevoir that needs to be checked.

The Lenco installation took me about 2 hours to do. It was easy and the only tools it took were an electricians fish tape, an electric drill, a hole saw to mount the control in the console, and my multitool (really!).

I have had these on my boat for two seasons. I have had zero problems and they work great. I keep my boat on a jet dock. On several occasions I have run my boat up on the dock with the tabs down. In one instance, I didn't notice it until days later when I tried to get the boat off the dock (the tabs were holding it on). I raised the tabs, the boat came off. No problems. These things are very well made and they mount very nicely on a whaler.

posted 07-01-2005 09:28 AM ET (US)            

Installation was not hard, but it did take six hours or so. Most of the time was spent preparing the battery box, making the spacers out of the aluminum, finding a place to mount the switch, and checking and rechecking the placement of the trim tabs. Once I started drilling holes in the boat it took less than two hours to finish.

posted 07-01-2005 10:36 AM ET (US)            

I also think that the Lenco installation is simpler since it is only wiring, no plumbing, if you are worried about it.

It really isn't that difficult of an install.

What is the hardest (for me) is trying to visualize the angle of the tabs mounted on the boat when it is on the trailer. This matters because of the placement of the actuators. But, it isn't a big thing either.

posted 07-02-2005 10:19 PM ET (US)            

Adding a kicker to the starboard side of the transom elimintated and listing from prop torque.

I am curious is this the first boat you have ever had trim tabs on? I have a lot of experience with them on other boats, and it would seem to me this may not be a good mod for a beginner who has never used them before. As you said above, over trimming in heavy seas could get hairy real fast.

posted 07-03-2005 02:32 PM ET (US)            

The whaler hull is pretty well behaved and I don't find that it gets snaky at all. I suppose that if you got tabs that were way oversized, you cause it to be a problem. Anyhow, no worries here.

What is nice is being able to decouple the angle of the motor from the attitude of the hull. It is possible to position the hull in the attitude you want it and then to trim the motor up or down until you find the optimum spot.

Really allows me to take a lot bigger boat wakes without speed reductions, reducing or eliminating pounding in the process.

posted 10-01-2007 02:38 PM ET (US)            

Do you know what brand of Trim Tabs are on your boat? They could be electro-hydraulic, Bennett, Boat Leveler (also known as Insta-trim, Teleflex (also known as Televator (no longer manufactured) or Trimmaster (now out of business) or Electro-mechanical, Lenco or Lectro Tab.

If they are Bennett I would be delighted to help you troubleshoot the system and do my best to get them operating correctly for you.