On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 19:50:20 -0400, Scott
wrote:

the boss and i just took out the boat for the very first time,
and we noticed that a slow speeds leaving the marina, the boat seemed to
be wandering to the left.
when we try to correct, it has a slow responce and we end up overcorrecting.
we look like a bunch of drunks.
at higher speeds on the lake every thing seems fine.
any ideas??

You don't say what kind of boat you have, but if
it is an IO or outboard on a planing hull (most
likely) then you are seeing something fairly
common. The long hull down in the water at low
speeds is like balancing a pencil on your finger
tip. It isn't that it wants to tip in any particular
direction, but that once it starts it wants to tip
farther in that direction.

I have found that tilting the outboard or IO drive
out (up) a bit so as to lift the bow a little will
help quite a bit. It won't cure it completely, but
you won't have to make such big corrections. Don't
crank it all the way out -- just a little.

This assumes that you have power tilt, and I am assuming
you will be able to REMEMBER TO LOWER THE DRIVE or
motor back to its lowest setting when you want to
take off. If you try to take off with the motor/drive
tilted out the stern of the boat will squat down
into the water under power, which will make it hard
to get up on the plane and hard to see out in front
of you while you are doing it.


--
--Pete "Peter W. Meek"
Rec.boats caps and burgees at:
http://www.msen.com/~pwmeek/cap-main.html