That's a fine explanation. It sounds like you had a good low slop cable
unit, perhaps a rack & pinion helm and a low flex cable. I'm not so
fortunate as I'm getting ~ 45 degrees slop at the wheel and don't have
the lateral space for a rack & pinion helm. Thanks for the info, it's
appreciated.

Yep - mine were rack and pinion. Are you using pulleys? So far I'm
very pleased with the hydraulic. Good luck with your replacement.

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 13:14:07 GMT, (Tom)
wrote:


That's a fine explanation. It sounds like you had a good low slop cable
unit, perhaps a rack & pinion helm and a low flex cable. I'm not so
fortunate as I'm getting ~ 45 degrees slop at the wheel and don't have
the lateral space for a rack & pinion helm. Thanks for the info, it's
appreciated.

Yep - mine were rack and pinion. Are you using pulleys? So far I'm
very pleased with the hydraulic. Good luck with your replacement.

When you run your boat in some wave action, I'd be very curious if you
can effect how the boat enters waves and whether you have any spray or
residual pounding. Or if you can change and smooth out the pounding
in say 6 to 18" of wave action.

Where I run my Ranger over in Narragansett Bay, it can turn from flat
calm to 1 foot in a hurry. My Ranger, I readily admit, does not run
very well in that kind of wave action and it's a slow ride back
without taking a beating at speed.

The jack plate didn't work very well for me, but I'd be curious if it
works well for you in that regard.

It would help resolve a long standing debate. :)

Later,

Tom

When you run your boat in some wave action, I'd be very curious if you
can effect how the boat enters waves and whether you have any spray or
residual pounding. Or if you can change and smooth out the pounding
in say 6 to 18" of wave action.

Where I run my Ranger over in Narragansett Bay, it can turn from flat
calm to 1 foot in a hurry. My Ranger, I readily admit, does not run
very well in that kind of wave action and it's a slow ride back
without taking a beating at speed.

Tom - sorry for the delay - just got back in town. We're not going to
the bay this weekend - forecast in 60's and possible rain but
hopefully I can try that next weekend and let you know. I've had it in
similar chop so far and it rides pretty smooth and dry. I've dropped
the trim tabs and smoothed the ride but haven't tried affecting it
with the jack plate but that's something else to experiment with. So
far I've only piddled with it to affect the time to get on plane and
the effect on speed. I'll try it and let you know if it makes any
difference. Take care.

Tom..............

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:27:02 GMT, (Tom)
wrote:


When you run your boat in some wave action, I'd be very curious if you
can effect how the boat enters waves and whether you have any spray or
residual pounding. Or if you can change and smooth out the pounding
in say 6 to 18" of wave action.

Where I run my Ranger over in Narragansett Bay, it can turn from flat
calm to 1 foot in a hurry. My Ranger, I readily admit, does not run
very well in that kind of wave action and it's a slow ride back
without taking a beating at speed.

Tom - sorry for the delay - just got back in town. We're not going to
the bay this weekend - forecast in 60's and possible rain but
hopefully I can try that next weekend and let you know. I've had it in
similar chop so far and it rides pretty smooth and dry. I've dropped
the trim tabs and smoothed the ride but haven't tried affecting it
with the jack plate but that's something else to experiment with. So
far I've only piddled with it to affect the time to get on plane and
the effect on speed. I'll try it and let you know if it makes any
difference. Take care.

10-4

Later,

Tom

When you run your boat in some wave action, I'd be very curious if you
can effect how the boat enters waves and whether you have any spray or
residual pounding. Or if you can change and smooth out the pounding
in say 6 to 18" of wave action.

Where I run my Ranger over in Narragansett Bay, it can turn from flat
calm to 1 foot in a hurry. My Ranger, I readily admit, does not run
very well in that kind of wave action and it's a slow ride back
without taking a beating at speed.

The jack plate didn't work very well for me, but I'd be curious if it
works well for you in that regard.

It would help resolve a long standing debate. :)

Tom - just got back from the bay but didn't get a chance to try out
the jack plate in any chop - not much wind and very little chop. Did
get to try shallow water a couple of times. Got into just about a foot
and a half of water - raised the jack plate and lowered the trim tabs
and shot onto plane - no problems. Then I got into less than a foot of
water and that was a different story - managed to remove quite a bit
of paint from the lower unit and dug a new channel for future
navigation. I always thought the red buoys were supposed to be on your
right when returning to port - apparently this doesn't hold true for
orange buoys as someone placed them on the left side of the channel
(so much for my assumption that they were faded red) :-). Anyway - I
was pleased with the performance in shallow water - have to go out of
town next weekend so it will be a couple of weeks before I put her
back in the water but I'll keep your request in mind if it gets
choppy. Take care.

Tom...........

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 02:19:55 GMT, (Tom)
wrote:

~~ snippage ~~

Then I got into less than a foot of
water and that was a different story - managed to remove quite a bit
of paint from the lower unit and dug a new channel for future
navigation. I always thought the red buoys were supposed to be on your
right when returning to port - apparently this doesn't hold true for
orange buoys as someone placed them on the left side of the channel
(so much for my assumption that they were faded red)

Thanks for the report - I'm not sure I'd want to run full throttle in
a foot of water, but hey...

As to navigation, I got a kick out of that story. Back in the day
when I worked on the rigs in the Gulf, I used to fish around Venice,
LA in the canals and bayous that twisted and turned all over the
place. For about the first three or four trips, I'd always end up on
a sand bar when rounding a turn. It wasn't until I figured out that
you need to turn WIDE on a turn that I had a solid run out to a
fishing camp that the company owned. :)

Anyway, it looks like I'm selling my Ranger - got a good offer for it
and I've only lost $1,000 over the four years I've owned it. I'm not
going to put a jack plate on it now. :)

I think the new boat will have a jack plate though - different type of
boat though.

Enjoy that Sea Pro - sound like a great boat.

Later,

Tom

Tom wrote:

Yep - mine were rack and pinion. Are you using pulleys? So far I'm
very pleased with the hydraulic. Good luck with your replacement.

Nope, it's a rotary helm and cable setup. There just seems to be an
accumulation of slop in the helm, cable, and linkage to the pump nozzle.
Thanks again for the info.
-rick-

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:15:44 -0800, -rick- wrote:

Tom wrote:

Yep - mine were rack and pinion. Are you using pulleys? So far I'm
very pleased with the hydraulic. Good luck with your replacement.

Nope, it's a rotary helm and cable setup. There just seems to be an
accumulation of slop in the helm, cable, and linkage to the pump nozzle.
Thanks again for the info.

Out of curiosity, how old is the unit?

Later,

Tom

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

Out of curiosity, how old is the unit?

It's got about 4 1/2 years and a little over 300 hours on it now. The
builder replaced the helm & cable the first summer due to the same
problem and while the replacement was marginally better than the
original it has slowly degraded since.

-rick-