Wayne.B wrote in message
...
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:24:06 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:
With a smaller, open boat, you can see when you are on plane. On the
Parker, that's pretty much impossible, though there are certain "feels"
at various speeds.

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It's been my experience that the transition point gets much fuzzier as
boat weight and length increase. With something like a Hatteras 53
weighing 50,000 pounds or so, they never really look or feel like they
are on plane even when going 20 knots.

My Bertram 33 weighed about 23,000 pounds and was clearly on plane at
13 to 14 knots with a little help from the trim tabs. It really
didn't FEEL like it was on plane however until it got over 20 kts. At
that point the hull was well out of the water and it had the feel of
gliding over the water instead of plowing it aside.


I get a similar feel with the Navigator. At 15 knots or so I can sense that
it is making a transition, and at 19 to 20 knots it sort of glides and will
bank into turns. I tweak with the tabs until the boat "feels good" and it
usually will add a knot or so to my speed. The Navigator has very little bow
rise however, compared to a Hat that typically takes a bow to the sky
attitude. The Navigator hull seems to lift uniformly and maintains a similar
attitude at 19 knots as it does sitting in the slip. One of the claims of
fame of the designer, Jules Marshall, is an efficient hull design that
allows a decent cruise speed with smaller engines. At 19 knots it burns
approximately 26 gals/hr with the twin 370 hp Volvo's and displacing
somewhere around 42000 lbs loaded up.

Eisboch