when i first bought the hull, i simply believed the mtr was too low due to some porpising and a max rev of 5000, max speed 38mph. It just didnt seem to stack up and i even rechecked the motor but all was well. i didnt fart around and raised the motor height 2 holes immediatley resulting in 5250rpm and about 44mph - this still wasn't on! i always had the feeling that the ass was being 'sucked' down ( this later proved to be the case ). as the height of the motor now looked to be max, and after trying to lift the ass a bit with different props, i was still scratching my head. ( prop by the way in 19inch 4 blader )
anyways, during yet another test, when a friend drove and i spent my whole time at the stern, the usual above stats ( speed revs ) were happening and all of a sudden, after skipping obviously the right combination of waves, the hull 'broke free' and soared in a matter of seconds to 56mph and about 5900 revs. this was nirvana, my friend was about to pull the throttle back until a horrid scream from me told him to move over and hang on. now that the hull was obviously performing how it should i needed to analyse it! further trimming resulted in 58mph ( gps ) and this was into a head wind, albeit a small one. the ass of the boat had sat right up, and the boat had flattened out considerably. interesting, fuel computer showed fuel usage had dropped by over 30%!!!! sounds too good to be true i know! i wanted to drive it all day like that having never had the boat perform that good before, but was satisfied that i had experienced the boats potential and was even more determined to find the glitch that was causing my problems.
google searches did not reveal anything so i tracked down ric haines in australia. the first thing he said was did it have a hole running vertically near the stern, from underneath hull upwards. i almost thought he was taking the mickey out of his kiwi neighbour but soon realised he wasn't. i stated that the only thing running vertically near the rear of the hull in the centre was some kind of structural support. he started laughing and said that this was no support, it was a hole that 'should' have gone through the hull to allow a venturi effect and the backside to lift up - some earlier owner had blocked it up and glassed over it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
as i write this it is being 'debunged' and i sit rubbing my hands with glee