Getting up on plane

aero3113

How fast do you guys advance the throttle to get up on plane from 5 MPH? I know the leg should be in the down position trim tabs should be deployed but how fast should you advance the throttle lever? Also do you go to wide open or less like 3/4?

Lifes Good

Twins: I advance slowly. Say up to 5 seconds in motion until she reaches around 4100 rpms and then dial back to 3850 rpms. This puts LG around 30 mph. Trim tabs at 25% and drives at 5% then move drives to appox 10% and trim down to 15% for best ride. Full plane in appox 15 seconds.

Dream_Inn

Yes, I generally take my time as LG stated.  But with my current boat I fully deploy the tabs briefly til she is just on plane.  My 310 I never really deployed the tabs unless I had additional weight.

TikiHut2

From idle speed on our 270 w/single 300hp merc/B3 it's: drive fully down, tabs fully down, ease the throttle up to 50% for 3-4sec, then 80% for 5-8sec(21mph), fully retract the tabs, at which point the boat speeds up aggressively so I pull the throttle back to 60-70% (3800rpm/27mph) and trim the drive to nearly parallel with the keel or just slightly fwd depending on sea conditions and load. At that point in trim my fuel flow meter reads best fuel rate about 15gph/1.8mpg +/-.

Hope that helped, Have a great season. Mike

brianluck

Tabs all the way down I lay into it slow and steady, if a feel any hiccups I pause then keep going, once on plane level her out with the tabs depending on load and conditions, all in all this usually happens in about 10 secs maybe longer, not looking to break out I the hole fast just enough to get the job done

Tsquare

Well tonight I was delivering a 2005 13' Boston whaler with a 9.9 four stroke.  The pier was about 4 miles away from the dock.  Talk about hard to get on plane.  This sucker topped out a 8.8 mph via gps on my phone.  Way too slow.  lol  Al

gslpro

Ever since blowing an Alpha drive 3 wks after getting my 290, I think I am just cautious getting the job done.  I deploy the tabs 100%, trim down, and then go in increments to almost full throttle.  Back them down once breaks onto plane and get those tabs in quickly.  I am only a lake, so coming out of channels, I like to get the bow down quickly, but I am afraid to peg it like I did on my old boats.  Lot of hp for alpha drives on a heavy boat.  

hanzelvh

with my VP D4 diesel (260 HP) normally no need for using tabs or negative trim. Starting with full trottle it goes to 2800 rpms which makes planing in 6-8 seconds. When fully loaded with water, diesel and 8 persons it need full tabs and -4 trim and takes more time but planing no problem. I think thatvthe high torque of the diesel works very positive in this.

Babyboomer

I run a 454 B3 and have never had a need to use the tabs I use for leveling and in rough water to put the bow down for a smoother ride but that big block will shoot that 270 out of the hole.

Michael T

2013 EC 310. Twin 350 DTS Mags with Axius and Vessel View. Drives fully down (tucked-in) as in 0 degrees on trim indicators. Throttles advanced fully. As bow drops after about 5 seconds I start to back- off the throttles, rpm's are about 4400 and I keep backing off until rpms are about 3500, then return tabs to fully retracted position. Increase +ve angle of drives until the boat feels 'loose" or starts to porpoise a bit, then I drop -ve the drives a bit. I used this same mo for single screws of different H.P. The Alpha drives should be fine up to 300 hp unless there have been stiff aftermarket engine mods or big weight changes to the boat itself that have really altered the design specs from Rinker/Mercury. Don't be afraid to give your boat some good throttle - in my opinion, that's better than dragging her down the water stern down and bow up. In my opinion that would be far harder on the engine and drives than gettin' r done fast. Remember, time on the water is supposed to be fun -(it's expensive, so at least it should be fun!)