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To Flop....or Not to Flop.

THE Cat Sass

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Ok...for all of you salty dawgs who have experience with Cats which have twins with high X's....whats your sequence to get 'em flopped over? My current boat (and 4th Cat) is a 28 Speedster with twins, XR/SSM 1.35 drives with -2 shorty (and now 1/2 spacers) running 34 labbed Max 5's. Also has a center tab. It's been an adventure learning how to coax it on plane. I'm about 80% successful now but if you miss the cue's you are toast...pray nobody is paying attention and start over. I've tried the "turn the wheel to the right, back and forth" deal once the nose lifts to move some air to the props, it can help but it's finicky and timing has to be spot on. PS...it takes a few seconds at 1/2 throttle to get it to the point where the props are about to break loose. If you're not ready when they break....it's 4K RPM and a class B shit-show going on. That said when you get it all just right it's like an Old Milwaukie beer commercial..."Doesn't get any better than that".

What's your Secret?
 

OldSchoolBoats

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Are you burying your tab???

Have you tried a -1??




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THE Cat Sass

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Are you burying your tab???

Have you tried a -1??




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Yep - Tab and drives buried. Have not tried a -1 but even the 1/2" spacer scrubbed some top end, prefer not to lose any more if I can help it.
 

Wmc

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Sounds like that's what you got. My 30 was the exact same drove me nuts. Props break loose boat starts to roll over, pull back throttles
 

Flying_Lavey

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Yep - Tab and drives buried. Have not tried a -1 but even the 1/2" spacer scrubbed some top end, prefer not to lose any more if I can help it.
Don't bury the tab. When the bow rises it increases the negative angle to the point where it'll act as a water brake. I'd suggest neutral to slightly negative for the tab and drives tucked.

(Mind you, I have no experience in big power twin or single cats)

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Singleton

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Take it to Teague and have him play with the setup.
He should get it dialed in for you and then explain what needs to be done
 

lake p.a.l.

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I truly wish I understood why some cats do this. I drove Bullys 28 Nordic a few weeks ago and tried to learn this "system" without great luck. I hope to learn something from this thread.
 
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prosthogod

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My 4 th cat. This is a 30ft magic septor twin670hp. switched from 5 blade maximas to 4 blade hinson. Incresed top speed by 5mph, and didn't effect coming out of the hole. 3k rpm and it rolls right over. It's for sale!
 

MotiV8

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Where is your prop shaft centerline in relation to the running surface? I assume since you're running 2" shorties (plus a 1/2" spacer) that it is above the bottom by about 1-3/4", but verifying that will help narrow down issues. Are you running on extension boxes?

Out of curiosity, what speeds have you been able to get and @ what RPM?
 

Boat Bling

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Don't bury the tab. When the bow rises it increases the negative angle to the point where it'll act as a water brake. I'd suggest neutral to slightly negative for the tab and drives tucked.

(Mind you, I have no experience in big power twin or single cats)

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I've got some hours behind the wheel of a 28' tall deck. Heavier layup but same bottom and likely similar setup. What Flying Lavey said was correct and made a big difference cutting plane time by 50%. Especially helpful when loaded down and seems to be much easier on the drives.

Try setting tab to neutral then lift up as soon as boat planes out.

Interesting trick discovered at Powell. If props wont blow out and boat is just bogging along, trim up a bit to aerate the props and build some RPM.

If all that doesnt work, check out the max machine "whale tail", most speak very highly of it.

-Zack

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HCP3

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I truly wish I understood why some cats do this. I drove Bullys 28 Nordic a few weeks ago and tried to learn this "system" without great luck. I hope to learn something from this thread.

Is this considered an issue, or just something you deal with? I would think if BHB's boat has this "issue", it must be something you just have to deal with? From what I've read on the forum, BHB seems to know about setup. I'm surprised his 28SS does this.
 

McKay

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I slowly roll my boat over, I hold it to about 3K RPM's till it stops gaining speed then just a little more throttle and it will start to cavitate and roll over. When it cavitates I keep pulling back on the throttles and try to hold it at 4500 RPM and keep it under 5K and it will roll over in less than a couple seconds.
 

ONE-A-DAY

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Yep - Tab and drives buried. Have not tried a -1 but even the 1/2" spacer scrubbed some top end, prefer not to lose any more if I can help it.

What has Kenny been suggesting? Are they trying to sort it out for you?
 

Sigus

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If you are using max 5 I assume you have pulled all the plastic plugs to help with aireation.

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lake p.a.l.

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Is this considered an issue, or just something you deal with? I would think if BHB's boat has this "issue", it must be something you just have to deal with? From what I've read on the forum, BHB seems to know about setup. I'm surprised his 28SS does this.

His 28 Nordic is absolutely DIALED in. I know a lot of center pod boats, I/O & outboard, single & twins, struggle to get on plane. I'm in NO way bashing, I love all boats, fast & slow.
This is just gonna be a thread I learn from.
 

HCP3

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His 28 Nordic is absolutely DIALED in. I know a lot of center pod boats, I/O & outboard, single & twins, struggle to get on plane. I'm in NO way bashing, I love all boats, fast & slow.
This is just gonna be a thread I learn from.

For sure! I wasn't trying to make it sound like you were bashing. I'm learning as well. I was curious if this is just part of the program when owning a cat.
 
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pkbullet

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Not the same set up, buy my experience. First boat m29 565's center tab. Finally got to roll over consistent with five blades and drive plates, still a dog though. Second boat m31 860's no tab, first season pain in the ass people climbing under bow. Second season added areators and everything works fine except you have to be over 167 degrees because she is banging 5 grand to roll over. My neighbors mti rolls over like my MasterCraft, and pisses me off every time.
 

4czn10

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i have the same problem. My 27 Ultra Shadow whippled 525 running scx drive 1.36(?) and a 26 bravo. I've tried the max machine "whale tail", and it made it worse for me. i do leave the tabs at neutral or a little bit down. i slowly take it up to 3500-3800 then a couple of s turns and it gets up in about 8-10 seconds with 2 adults. Of course if i have more passengers, i need to move some up to the open bow, and take it to 4000. if y'all tell me that's normal, then i will live with it. it's just a little frustration coming from vee hulls...
 

Tom Slick

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Ok...for all of you salty dawgs who have experience with Cats which have twins with high X's....whats your sequence to get 'em flopped over? My current boat (and 4th Cat) is a 28 Speedster with twins, XR/SSM 1.35 drives with -2 shorty (and now 1/2 spacers) running 34 labbed Max 5's. Also has a center tab. It's been an adventure learning how to coax it on plane. I'm about 80% successful now but if you miss the cue's you are toast...pray nobody is paying attention and start over. I've tried the "turn the wheel to the right, back and forth" deal once the nose lifts to move some air to the props, it can help but it's finicky and timing has to be spot on. PS...it takes a few seconds at 1/2 throttle to get it to the point where the props are about to break loose. If you're not ready when they break....it's 4K RPM and a class B shit-show going on. That said when you get it all just right it's like an Old Milwaukie beer commercial..."Doesn't get any better than that".

What's your Secret?
I didn't see it posted, but what motors and horsepower does your boat have? And what is you current top speed?
 

CJ_Donahue

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I have to be honest, when I read the title I hought this was going to be about Soccer or Basketball.... They are always flopping.
 

MK1MOD0

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I had a 28 ft Advantage sportcat with twin 800’s , 135 sport masters and 36p bravos. It had a tab, but I soon learned to just leave it neutral. Dropping it just slowed down the process. I’d start rolling in the throttles, getting the boat moving forward then bring the motors up to about 2500 rpm until she rolled over and the props would spin up. At that point she was off. I did make sure all extra weight such as coolers,gear etc was all the way forward.
 

lake p.a.l.

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For sure! I didn't mean to make it sound like you were bashing. I'm learning as well. I just was curious if this is just part of the program owning a cat.

Not all cats do it. I owned a 28 "cat" deck single BBC that wouldn't aerate prop at all to get on plane, even with crazy heavy loads of people. I owned a 25 Daytona BBC that would aerate the prop a lil getting on plane but never any issue. Currently own 308 Skater twin 300XS that aerates props a lil to get on plane but my 5 blade DeWalds can plane without aerating when boat is light.
Sorry, not trying to thread jack, just want to learn
 

THE Cat Sass

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Great stuff - Appreciate the replies. It has 600SCI's and Merc ITS boxes so has a little set-back as well. I have the plugs in the Max 5's but was told by a couple people that they do nothing if you don't have thru prop exhaust? I guess I should pull 1 out on each prop and just see what happens? There's like 3 per prop! I'll try backing off the tab next trip out as well and see what that does. Without measuring it I'd guesstimate that shaft centerline is around an inch below outside sponsons...plus or minus. I attempted to trim up a little when the nose was in the air and it wasn't quite ready to start building RPM...that was a "Thanks for playing and do it again". Maybe I'll try trimming up a little right from the start and see how that fares. Top speed thus far was 128 at 5850 with Kenny at the helm, assuming it was on fumes. Since then we have added the 1/2" spacer and dropped the center tab 1 notch which gives it more down leverage but also doesn't lift it completely out of play when its all the way up. With those changes my top thus far has been 122 but with 3 in the boat and a bunch of fuel.
 

THE Cat Sass

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What has Kenny been suggesting? Are they trying to sort it out for you?
They did the spacer and lowered the tab, if I couldn't live with it the next solution would have been to add more spacer which would also scrub more top end. I'm gettin' better at it so its not enough of a PITA to mess with more spacer...just hoping to rule out and tricks of the trade that I may be missing. LOVE the boat, just don't love getting it on plane. :)
 

GRADS

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I had a 2006 28' Daytona and had similar issues. I have to head out now but I will post my thoughts later after I read every post. I will say this, after skimming through and reading a few posts I was like :eek::eek:. No wonder you fuckers blow so many drives....keep it under 5000 rpm's to get on plane???:eek:
 

MotiV8

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Great stuff - Appreciate the replies. It has 600SCI's and Merc ITS boxes so has a little set-back as well. I have the plugs in the Max 5's but was told by a couple people that they do nothing if you don't have thru prop exhaust? I guess I should pull 1 out on each prop and just see what happens? There's like 3 per prop! I'll try backing off the tab next trip out as well and see what that does. Without measuring it I'd guesstimate that shaft centerline is around an inch below outside sponsons...plus or minus. I attempted to trim up a little when the nose was in the air and it wasn't quite ready to start building RPM...that was a "Thanks for playing and do it again". Maybe I'll try trimming up a little right from the start and see how that fares. Top speed thus far was 128 at 5850 with Kenny at the helm, assuming it was on fumes. Since then we have added the 1/2" spacer and dropped the center tab 1 notch which gives it more down leverage but also doesn't lift it completely out of play when its all the way up. With those changes my top thus far has been 122 but with 3 in the boat and a bunch of fuel.

Correct, without thru prop exhaust, pulling those plugs will not do anything for aeration. 122 with people and fuel seems pretty good to me. I notice a few mph loss with just a few extra people in my daytona. Wish I could help more with your planing issues, but as I'm pretty far under propped right now I usually roll over right around 2500 rpm, regardless of where the tab is set (but with drives fully tucked).
 

02HoWaRd26

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I may have missed it, but what about swapping props, if your running inward flip to outward, seems like a 5 minute swap, then flip levers backwards for a run, if it helps awesome if not swap back. Seems simple enough to test.
 

pkbullet

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As some had mentioned about using the center tab, my experience was that with smaller pitch four blade props they would aerate too early. If I put 32 four blades on, I could not use the tab. With 33 5 blades it helped. The drive plates made the biggest difference.
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Teague_JR

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As some had mentioned about using the center tab, my experience was that with smaller pitch four blade props they would aerate too early. If I put 32 four blades on, I could not use the tab. With 33 5 blades it helped. The drive plates made the biggest difference.

I agree with this setup. Try the larger cavitation plates. All the DCB F29's with 525's or 565's have them... You might even be able to remove the spacers if they work well enough. With our 28 Speedster with INDY drives, center tab all the way down helped reduce planing time and RPM required to plane...

JT
 

THE Cat Sass

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So...Update. I've now tried 36P labbed B1's (it hated those until the boat got over 70mph, lots of vibration and had to lean hard on them to flop) then went to the 15-1/4" Max 5 34P labs - those are 1/4 larger diameter than my originals. These seem to be the best bet thus far. New trick to NOT blow out the props...feather it up to around 2K, then as the props start to get loose keep 'em at around 2500-2700 RPM and it will slowly gain enough speed to drop over....takes about half a football field to do it but it's at least consistent. The Max 5's seem to be the ticket on this boat...pretty good slip numbers on the top +/- 8% and 127mph at 5600'ish. This boat is VERY trim sensitive....from all the way negative (0 on gauge) you can get to around 1.5 to 2 on the gauge and at that point you have a mile long rooster tail and the slip numbers are horrid. Seems to like virtually no roost on the top end and about level on the trim. If you just tap and I mean tap the trim button at speed the boat immediately reacts. Assuming this is a function of a taller X dim...Looked again and the centerline of propshafts is about even to 1/2 above bottom of sponsons. Still learning but getting better.
 

THE Cat Sass

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PS....Tab absolutely must be totally buried. Its not having any part of a non-buried tab at the flop!
 
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