Quote:
Originally Posted by npm108
I was having a look today at a Valiant 550 Comfort and was slightly curious about the heritage of this model. I was told that Brunswick now own Valiant and indeed the boat was all pre rigged for Mercury. The carving and marking plate showed the manufacturer as Arimar, do Brunswick own them too now?
The tubes look like the V series I've seen in some posts but I noticed that whilst the hull starts off as a V it goes into a flat wedge from amidships to the stern. A flattened V rather than pointed and I found this strange. I presume it assists in getting lift so on the plane faster, but what are these hulls like in weather ?
The 550 can take a 115, though seems to be rigged in most promo videos with an 80hp. In the case of Mercy's EFI 4s doesn't make much sense as it weighs the same as the 115.
Are they any good?
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Had a quick google and couldnt see the flat bit on that model although its nothing new in concept.
The size of the planing pad varies in shape and in profile, on different boats I had a 6.3 that had a 3 foot long pad about a foot wide and totally flat, and an 8.5 where the pad was curved. They are supposed to increase lift, and perhaps efficiency whilst on the plane, either mine werent all that effective, or I wasnt any good at detecting the improvement or the boat was rigged wrong, but compared to a hull before that had none, I didnt find a huge difference, with one exception, it made chine walking impossible when the pad was large and flat.
All of my boats were fixed installations with the same crew. Perhaps if your boat ran with a variety of divers and their kit you might have seen a benefit then .. but in reality, each boat had a diffenet weight and engine combo, so the differences were hard to measure for me
I liked the Valliant brand though, excellent tube work, a little flimsy on the fixture & fittings side, but well thought out
Clewless
