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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.