Well we've had another day out with the Suzuki. It now has 6 of the 10hrs needed to run in and at this stage is allowed full throttle for a max of 5mins.... oh if only the easterly breeze and sea state would allow! As so often happens we had a decent run out but by the return when I wanted to trial speeds/revs the sea state was not ideal once we headed back into wind.
I'll report more in the thread...
Suzuki DF20AES - prop size but with our hefty loading in the Aerotec it feels far more gutsy and responsive with the new 10" pitch prop compared with the 11" pitch it was supplied with.
Also by re-trimming the boat to be a little less bow heavy the slightly heavy feeling to the tiller steering I'd mentioned has gone.
It really had to work hard today as by mid afternoon it was gusty and once the tide turned against wind it produced a typical short chop added to larger waves with windblown crests. Typical shake your teeth out weather for SIBs so I was on and off the throttle much of the time to make best progress and keep crew in the boat... so no real chance for it to drop into its lean burn mode.
So given load carried and the conditions I was quite happy with 8l fuel used for 18Nm.
We have adapted our way of handling the outboard so it is lifted less one-handed and doing this it's proving less stressful at 44kg than my previous "it's OK I can manage on my own" efforts with the old 36kg 2-stroke.
No more to say really... thank goodness after the outlay and taking a chance it would suit it's turned out a total success.