Hello folks,
Some of you may recall I had a 2.5hp and was pootling on the Trent with my 3.2m Boatworld.
Well, I've bought a 9.9hp as previously discussed on here, and now I've finally had it out this weekend just gone, again on the Trent. 1 hour running in new engine at a slow pootle as instructed, but then tried it at 3/4 throttle as instructed for 2nd hour and off we went.
As I've only had the 2.5hp before, what follows is a new experience for me:
Two grown men, with probably just 15kg much more crap in boat plus half full fuel tank, prow came up a fair bit as we picked up speed (no pooping though), but then boat levelled out in an almost spooky way and we're off to the races.
We didn't get phones out to do speed test because I was driving and my m8 was hanging on lmao. I imagine you lot would think this is all very tame but we felt like we were flying - maybe doing 20mph looking at the bank, don't know, can be deceptive, can't it?
Either way, ~20mph on the Trent, even on a deserted section where we were is Not Cricket so that's all we did, couple minutes, will not do again.
Couple thoughts and questions:
Boat floor was flexing a bit, I assume this is perfectly normal. When we started on this, there were no trees on either bank so with the minor wind there was a bit of small chop. When we went round the bend where there were trees on both banks it was much smoother. All of this is a no brainer.
Outboard trim - I didn't adjust it all day (in fact I've never adjusted it in my life, it's never seemed worth it). When we started planing and the boat levelled out, doing this seemed pointless. Obviously outboard trim adjustments need to be done beforehand and are going to depend on weight distribution in the boat. Is it reasonable to say that, if the boat feels level on the plane and planing is your aim, outboard trim adjustment isn't necessary?
Finally, the inflatable sausage keel was deflated when we got the boat out of the water. It didn't seem to be leaking when we inflated it again after to see. This requires more investigation than what we did at the time and could have other explanations, but does anyone have any experience of say, air being forced out the valve on these things after usage with rigorous speeds and bounce?
Anyway, what larks Pip, what larks
![big grin](https://www.rib.net/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
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