Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

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Outrage 20
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Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Outrage 20 » Wed May 19, 2021 12:11 am

Most Outrages models tend to slam into a head sea.

Will the [$140] automatically-operating trim tab product advertised in the link below smooth the ride of OUTRAGE models into head seas [by automatically] sensing [the tendency of an OUTRAGE model to slam] and push down the [bow]?

http://www.westmarine.com/buy/bennett-m ... 8QQ3ai51zg

jimh
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 19, 2021 10:32 am

I doubt there is any sort of sensing mechanism. The trim tabs are more likely just exerting a pressure downward that is controlled by a mechanism that permits movement of the tab to reach an equilibrium of external force acting to move the tab upward with internal force working to move the tab downward.

Outrage 20
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Outrage 20 » Wed May 19, 2021 10:41 am

Understood, I'm looking for anyone that my have experience with these, to find out how it affects their ride into a headsea, and if it in turn creates an excessive wet ride as a result?

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Phil T
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Phil T » Wed May 19, 2021 1:09 pm

Bennett’s new Self-Leveling Tabs (SLT)


No one has them. They are new.

As for our opinion, automatic tabs are dubious, just look at the "Smart Tab" threads.
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jimh
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 19, 2021 7:00 pm

Trim tabs can only lower the bow from where it would be with no trim tabs.

Going into head seas the best ride usually occurs with the boat trim set for bow high.

On that basis any sort of trim tab cannot improve the ride into head seas, and certainly not on some sort of “sensing” and “automatic” operation.

If every boat could have a significant improvement in its ride quality into head seas by adding something that only cost $140 whereas the boat might cost $100,000, every boat builder would add the $140 device and raise the price a few hundred dollars.

Even if you bought some wreck for $2,000 then spending $140 to make a big improvement would make sense, and people would line up to buy the $140 gizmo.

In truth, if you want to go faster into head seas get a boat that is twice as long as the one you have now.

Jloutrage
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Jloutrage » Wed May 26, 2021 10:26 am

You can reduce the pounding when heading into a sea by lowering the bow. Trim tabs can lower the bow.

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 26, 2021 10:53 am

Let's look at the two most recent replies in this discussion:

jimh wrote:Going into head seas the best ride usually occurs with the boat trim set for bow high.


Jloutrage wrote:You can reduce the pounding when heading into a sea by lowering the bow. Trim tabs can lower the bow.


As often occurs in forums discussions, a topic that attracts multiple replies will elicits opinions that are completely opposite. This has just occurred now in this discussion.

The information being sought in the discussion is a method to "Improve Ride into Head Seas."

The readers must now decide if improvement in ride will occur if the bow is forced lower than the hull's natural trim by using an automatically actuating transom-mounted trim tabs, causing the heads seas to be encountered by the bow stem and to be higher up on the bow stem and to hit the full width of the bow, rather than encounter them at the hull's natural trim,; or decide if the improvement will occur by letting the boat's natural trim remain or even using engine trim to raise the bow so the head seas are encountered on the narrower and finer hull bottom surfaces instead of slamming into the bow stem.

Since the inquiry was initiated by the owner of a Boston Whaler OUTRAGE 20, my remarks are in regard to that boat in particular, and to all classic era OUTRAGE hulls, that is the 18, 20, 22, and 25 OUTRAGE hulls. Having extensively operated those hulls myself in rather tall head seas on many occasions, my comment (quoted above) is based on that experience. The bow entry of a classic OUTRAGE hull is not particularly narrow or fine, so the last thing I want to do is to lower the bow to let the headsea smash into the full beam of the boat at the bow.

Regarding a hull's natural fore-and-aft trim while underway at planing speed, the location of weight in the boat, the nature of the hull planing running surfaces, and the engine trim setting will establish the trim. Boats with very little weight in the forward half of the boat may have a tendency for the bow to be bounced upward when encountering waves, particularly at higher boat speeds while on plane, and particularly at very small wave heights. This bouncing or oscillation of the boat can generally be eliminated with engine trim to cause the boat to lower the bow to a more advantages point of entry into waves. But in the context of this discussion, the trim tab is not an adjustable tab. The trim tab works autonomously and automatically. To infer that such a device will inherently improve the ride into head seas at all speeds and all wave heights is not reasonable.

As I previously stated, there is no $140 gizmo that will allow a 20-foot classic OUTRAGE hull to make way into significant head seas with "an improved ride" at planing speeds.

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Jloutrage » Wed May 26, 2021 10:59 am

I stand by what I said.

jimh
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 26, 2021 11:21 am

We will all have to wait for the first OUTRAGE 20 owner to spend $140 and tell us of any “improvement of ride into head seas.”

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 26, 2021 11:23 am

Jloutrage wrote:I stand by what I said.
I never thought for a second that anything I said above would hold water for you. Plunge that bow down and meet those head seas full on!

MarkCz
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby MarkCz » Wed May 26, 2021 11:41 am

Not apples to apples but my Montauk rides better into a head sea with the bow down.

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 26, 2021 11:56 am

MarkCz wrote:Not apples to apples but my Montauk rides better into a head sea with the bow down.
I think the variable here is how large the head seas and what speed is desired.

To make way upwind into large head seas, I have always found the best ride with my classic Outrage-style hull is to reduce speed, keep the bow high, and let the wave fronts take on the finer and narrower hull bottom a few feet aft of the bow stem. We do this at a speed of about 10-MPH maximum with head seas greater than three feet--and here I mean actual three-feet tall waves, which are often described as and felt as being much bigger. Trim bow-down and there would be green water coming over the bow on every wave. And these waves are steep and closely spaced waves sometimes breaking waves, not ocean swells that are five seconds apart at 25-MPH.

Every boat owner is completely free to operate his boat in whatever manner of trim he finds best. What is really under discussion here is can some $140 device operating without any sort of sensors or feedback on the boat motion cause the boat's ride quality to improve into head seas.

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Wed May 26, 2021 12:38 pm

jimh wrote:Trim tabs can only lower the bow from where it would be with no trim tabs.

To elaborate on this, trim tabs are actually stern lifters. They only indirectly lower the bow.

The best feature of having independently adjustable and manually controlled trim tabs is to even out lateral trim. Generally for a small V-hull boat on plane with cross winds, the boat will tend to lean into to the wind. Having trim tabs allows lateral trim to be corrected to return to neutral.

Perhaps when someone buys the $140 gizmo we can find out how it works for lateral trim compensation.

Outrage 20
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Outrage 20 » Wed May 26, 2021 11:10 pm

Jim, I have not, nor do I intend on buying these, as it appears based on some of the above comments that they are not as effective as advertised, even without first hand knowledge. That said, every boat I have owned, with the exception of my 43' Bluesea which was a full displacement hull, would ride much better with the bow down into a headsea, and these are true head seas here in the Pacific ocean, not a lake. Granted there needs to be a "Feathering" of trim to meet the exacting needs of the ride, based on speed, seas, wind and current and weight distribution, as you suggested. Simply pushing the bow down is not a solution, and my guess is that these $140 tabs are not the magic bullet, I was simply asking if anyone had any experience with them.

Jloutrage
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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby Jloutrage » Thu May 27, 2021 7:35 am

I agree with Outrage20. I’ve owned more than a dozen different boats and they all rode much better with the bow down into a head sea. Trim tabs will help with this. I wouldn’t install trim tabs that automatically adjust, but rather, use manually adjusting trim tabs to assist in getting the best ride possible given the water conditions and other variables.

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Re: Automatically-operating Trim Tabs to Improve Ride into Head Seas

Postby jimh » Thu May 27, 2021 11:15 am

I have run many classic Boston Whaler OUTRAGE hulls, the 18, 20, 22, and 25-foot hulls, and all of them are generally miserable going into head seas of any significant size. And my experience with them all is to keep the bow trim a bit high so as not to slam into the wave fronts when making way into big head seas.

Regarding the distinction between waves and swells and lakes and oceans, the head seas I am talking about are short, steep, closely spaced wind waves with wave heights of three-feet. Running into those waves in a 20-foot OUTRAGE with the bow forced down by trim tabs is going to put green water over the bow.

One of the worst head seas I have experienced occurred in Princess Louisa Inlet on the coast of British Columbia, several hundred miles north of Vancouver. We had enjoyed a nice 30-mile run to the head of the inlet, and stayed there overnight. Departing the next morning to return to the sea, we encountered high winds funneling up the narrow inlet, with a falling tide in opposition to the wind waves. The result was a very nasty head sea with short spaced waves of two to three feet. My 20-foot Boston Whaler classic OUTRAGE-type hull could only make way into those seas at about 8 to 10-MPH, with the bow trimmed up. The notion that I ought to trim the bow down and let those waves come smashing over the bow never occurred to me. We made our way upwind with a boat motion that was much better and much more endurable than trying to push the bow into those waves. We were in the company of another boat, an OUTRAGE 18, and he tucked in behind us in our wake, in slightly calmer water,

Now if I had a been there in a 43-foot boat, perhaps some other trim would have been better. But in an OUTRAGE-20-type hull, no way is lowering the boat to take on big head seas going to produce "an improvement in the ride."

Hey, everybody can trim their own boat any way they like in whatever wave conditions they encounter.