Northwest Fishing Reports

15' Smokercraft Lodge with 25 HP 4-stroke Yamaha with a Minnkota electric trolling motor hanging on the bow and a 12 volt battery stored in a forward compartment about 30" aft of the bow.

Seems to take forever to get up on plane and requires higher speeds to keep on plane. Thinking about adding Sport SE 200 hydrofoil to help with the problem.

Comments and/or sharing your experiences with hydrofoils, good or bad would be appreciated.

Couldn't hurt...Also, change the tilt on the motor...Or upgrade motor to a bigger motor...40hp

Hydrofoils won't work on that size of boat. You need some more weight in the bow, thats why you can't plane quickly. Move your gas tank, an ancohor the beer cooler ect foward in the boat and try to plane off before you drop the $85 for a foil. I have a 14ft Aluminum Trition with the same issue. I put my 5 year old in the front seat and I plane in 1/10 the time

Firetiger,
sounds like your boat wants to plow the water like you have too much weight up front. try moving your battery back a bit for balance. I was running a 14' smokercraft w/ a Honda 15 and would porpoise quite a bit. added a Doelfin and took care of that and it helped with the hole shot. I could scoot along at 28 - 30 mph according to the GPS. Now I have an Arima w/ a Honda 90 and I put the Doelfin on it and the 15 is my kicker. Anyway, try the Doelfin, it's cheaper AND IT WORKS GREAT.
tight lines,
Maury

If your having trouble keeping it on plane it might be a lack of power...Upgrading the motor would be ideal, but a hydrofoil would definetely help...And yes a hydrofoil would work on something like a 15 footer,

Final update

Comment: Change the tilt on the motor...Or upgrade motor to a bigger motor...40hp

Reply: Set tilt for optimum performance. 40hp 4-stroke would add too much weight to the transom. Doesn't matter anyway because I can't afford a 40hp outboard.

Comment: Move your gas tank, an ancohor the beer cooler ect foward in the boat.

Reply: Fuel tank located under rear seat box, starter battery next to transom, and trolling battery up front in bow compartment. All the equipment is positioned to minimize clutter. Only passengers can be moved forward or aft as needed.

I finally purchased a Hydrofoil SE Sport 200 for about $55 at Boater's World.

Performance before installing.

15' Smokercraft Lodge with 25 HP 4-stroke Yamaha with a Minnkota electric trolling motor hanging on the bow and a 12 volt battery stored in a forward compartment about 30" aft of the bow. One person with about four gallons of gas.

15-30 secs to plane. Bow started high and dropped as boat reached planing speed. Planed about 13 mph with about 23 mph at WOT.

Performance after installing.

About two hundred additional pounds so not quite a fair comparison.

Same results as before with one difference. Boat remained flat (bow down) from start to planing speed. It was like the boat justed lifted out of the water and rode on top of the water.

I'm happy with the increase in performance, getting the bow down was my major concern.

great info!

my neighbor has a bit of an underpowered ski boat and was thinking about putting one on his I/O. he has a newer 17' fiberglass runabout with a V-6. anybody have any experience with how the hydrofoils work on larger boats?

i have a 19' I/O with a 5.8 V-8 with a 4-blade prop so i get pretty good jump out of the hole but will spend the $ for any moderate to significant performance gain. worth putting one on mine?

any ideas/opinions out there?

Troutcowboy, hydrofoils work well in bring the nose down quicker on underpowered boats, it should help your neighbors boat and a $125 hydrofoil is a lot cheaper than trim tabs which do the same thing.

If you have a 351 cu engine and a 4 blade prop you would notice little if any differance as you likely plane out in a few seconds. In the boat is properly powers, as your is, the best way to change the performance is to drop or gain a pitch size on the prop.