Can too much information be a bad thing?

Being in a service business constitutes many things. The most important is working with the customer and getting their needs and wants taken care to the best of your abilities. But what are you supposed to do when a customer wants something that you know will be wrong for their application? That is a really tough situation to be in and we are in it all the time because of too much information.

In today's world of the internet and the World Wide Web at a click of a button, boat owners can access as much information as they want. Be it they go to manufactures web sites, fishing and boating forums, or just chat sites with like boat owners. They can find about anything they need and if they can't find what they want, someone close at hand is sure to have "been there and done that." This includes everything from what size motor is best for what size boat, what type of fuel to use, where's the best place to put your gear, to what prop is best for this boat. Is all this information correct? NO WAY!

Now, unfortunately, many new boat owners, or even old boat owners who have purchased boats they are unfamiliar with, rely on someone else to tell them the rights and the wrongs and the do's and don'ts. And then there are the ones that go out and experiment on their own and think that is as good as it is suppose to be. Be honest with yourself, your first new boat, you ran it because you thought whoever you bought it from had set it up correctly. But as you became more informed, you realized this isn't always the case. Hopefully, as we talk about propellers, you will not only become informed but you get the RIGHT information.

Many customers talk to us and one of the first comments they offer is, "I don't know if this is the right prop for my boat." Well if they were properly informed, they could find that out with a little testing on their own. Some may have heard a buddy of theirs say, "this is wrong or you need to do that because it's the only way." Or what about the guy who reads too much on the internet? These are probably the toughest things a propeller shop has to deal with; and that's where we have to work really hard to correctly teach and inform the boat owner about their questions.

Since the introduction of jack plates on tunnel boats, myths continue to run rampant because of bad information passed from generation to generation. One myth is that you have to run a 4 blade prop on a shallow water boat. Another myth, the one we will try and educate you on today is, where to run the jack plate and trim while getting on plane and while cruising.

We like to send our customers on a 30 minute or so test session on JP (jack plate) heights and trim settings because it does a number of things. It tells exactly how high on the JP you can get the boat on plane without slippage. It gives you the best settings to run your cruise speeds. And it gives us wide open throttle rpm's and slippage rates of the propeller. As well as opening the boat owner's eyes to the point of saying, "I didn't know my boat would do that."

Very simply, you want to start with the motor all the way down on the JP and trimmed all the way under in a negative position. From a dead stop you want to get the boat on plane and START TRIMMING ONLY. If you have a trim gauge, you want 3 settings to get rpm and speed readings. You already know that as you start to trim the motor out, the rpm's will begin to increase and the speed changes. What you want to do is at WOT (wide open throttle) mark down the rpm's and speed for each marked setting. After you go through all 3 marked trim angles at 0 lift on the jack plate, and writing the speeds and rpm's down, you shut back down and do it all over again at 1" up on the JP. You repeat this same process for every inch of lift on the JP.

Now look back at the speed and rpm settings you have written down and look for the fastest speed. Along with the corresponding rpm, you have your maximum rpm's. As you look over your findings, you will see that the rpm's will raise but the speeds begin to fall off and slow down at the higher settings. At whatever setting you achieved your top speed (Example: 4" up on JP and trim) this should be your optimum cruise settings to get most efficiency. This test also dictates to your propeller shop if the propeller needs any additional cupping or if you need to change pitch or even diameters to reduce slippage. And finally, it determines just how high on the JP you can get the boat on plane with no slippage. Another thing, while attempting hole shot tests, don't think you have to give full throttle from a dead stop. Remember that a tunnel must have water flowing through it to work; and from a dead stop the propeller will suck all the water out of a tunnel and void it. No water, no movement.

Remember, this should be done with any new propeller you put on your boat due to each prop having different characteristics and will run differently. The information you gain firsthand is better than anything you read or get from someone else. So as long as you get the right information, it isn't a bad thing.

Be safe on the water.