Hydrofoil for inboard outboard12/4/2023 The hole shot was equivalent to putting the tabs down in normal use and came up and on plane quickly. I was also able to stay on plane at a lower rpm than with trim tabs, and it stayed on plane better in rough conditions. I could noticeably feel the lift, and the best description I can offer is it feels like a shock absorber on the transom. Conditions I would normally have to throttle back for I could easily power through without slamming. Sea trial revealed a very impressive improvement in ride in seas. Installation was very easy and instructions well written. The quality of materials in the product is very good. My initial interest when I first saw the Hydro-shield was for the prop protection feature, but was also curious what it would do for overall performance. The boat is equipped with trim tabs and jack plate. I have a 2018 Sea Pro 248 bay boat with a 300 Mercury Verado for power. I also like the fact that there is nothing mechanical that can cause issues with the Hydro-Shields." With the Hydro-Shields at 3200 RPM I am running 14.75 gallons per hour and have gained about 1 mile per hour. Without the Hydro-Shields I was running 16 gallons per hour. The boat is performing better than when the trim tabs were actually working. The boat plains immediately and with a few minutes of adjusting the trim on the motors I was able to make the boat perform better than it ever has. The difference has been amazing well above what I was anticipating. You assured me that the Hydro-Shields would dramatically enhance the performance of my boat and also help with fuel usage. A few months ago you recommended that I install Hydro-Shields to both outboards. Constant maintenance and constant cost and they rarely worked properly if at all. I had many issues with the hydraulic trim tabs from the beginning. If your boat already performs well, however, you shouldn’t expect these things to work magic."I purchased a used 24’ center console boat bracketed to 27’ with twin 200 Yamaha outboard engines. So back to the question – should you put one on your boat? Only if there’s a problem like those mentioned above which you’re trying to solve. ![]() Meanwhile, if you’re confident the hydrofoil is a must-have, traditional drill-and-bolts like those from Dolcher and Stingray work quite well. It took me a solid three hours to figure out how to do a 15-minute job. ![]() One caution: the installation instructions seem to have been written by a chimp, and you’ll feel like Bobo yourself when you try to put these things on. It seems impossible that these clips can actually take the torque and hang on to the lower unit without any drilling, but I tried ‘em on the Glacier Bay and both have held on tight without a problem. But check out Sport Marine’s SE Clip, which allows you to mount Sport’s hydrfoils without drilling. ![]() Of course, many people want to give a foil a try but hesitate, because it means drilling holes in the anti-ventilation plate. Although there are a lot of claims – mostly by the foil manufacturers – of speed boosts, in my experience if there isn’t another performance problem the foils solve (like the trim issues) then speed remains the same. Should you add foils purely to get a speed boost? Probably not. What about a performance boost? No dice in this case speed remained identical to foil-free operation. When I added the foils side to side motion dropped in the 10 to 15 percent range. In other cases, specifically with powercats, foils will reduce the side to side rocking motion that often accompanies a beam sea. The picture you see here is of my own boat, a 22 Glacier Bay. There is a performance boost, usually of two or three MPH at cruise, as a side-effect. On a 16 footer with a mid-sized outboard and no tabs, for example, a hydrofoil will usually level out the ride by forcing the stern up and the bow down, and will end or greatly reduce porposing. The smaller the boat the more significant the impact is, especially on boats that don’t have trim tabs. That said…Īdding a hydrofoil to an outboard does provide a performance boost much of the time. And I always start my answer by cautioning that every boat is different, and there are no guarantees. Will adding a hydrofoil improve the performance of your boat? I get asked this question all the time, usually by people who have outboard powered boats with relatively lackluster performance.
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