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Performance
The boats performs very
well especially in shallow water,
seems to have more lift when the water is only a couple inches deep. The
steering is pretty responsive but you must remember because there is no rudder
it will only turn when you are on the gas. I have trouble keeping clean
water to pump because the Flat Bottom does not skim debris to the sides away
from the intake like a "V" hull would. So when I run over leafs and
other such floating objects it will try to suck them through the intake grate and stops up
the intake
hole. Most of the time I can stop the motor and it will fall away, sometimes I will need to pull it away
by hand, moss tends to tangle around the grate
so I try to resist the urge of taking the shallow way ,that is unless it is the only way. The other problem I have is in
water that has a lot of small waves, two or three inches high and close together
like a washboard on a dirt road, I lose suction and have to cut back to about
have throttle until I get past the washboard rapids. I have tried
different intake grates it seems to be a trade off with a scoop grate in the
washboard rapids it does a better job and I do not lose suction as easy; but the
extra 1 1/2" hangs down and hooks on rocks. It also cuts down my top
speed. The scoop grate has two bars blocking things from being ingested in
the pump which seems to solve my problems with a large amount of debris getting
hung on the grate to where I must stop and
remove it. Probably it is just a matter of time until I suck up something solid
enough to do damage to the pump. I like the stock intake grate the
best even though the three bars catches more junk, but no scoop, so when I go "stump jumping " or
" rock hopping" it slides over without hanging onto something and breaking my
grate. The UHMW strakes seem to be holding up well however I have had to
pull off some 8-10 in long "curly cue" shavings from time to time.
Overall the boat does what I built it for quite well but it is not one boat for
all your sporting needs. The gas mileage is terrible; around three and a
half miles per gallon. This may be in part do to my inability to run at
anything less than full throttle for any length of time. The top speed
seems to be around 22 mph, I do not have the stock impeller, which I was not
happy with at all, the top speed was around 14 mph. The only
other issue that is of any real importance is the noise; it is loud!!! I have addressed
this problem with some success but I will need to do more, for now earplugs.
