Boat tracks horrible

Dirty_Oar

Member
Hey everyone. Great forum here. I haven't had a boat in about 15 years and even then they were always smaller15' or less boats, but I just recently bought a new to me Striper 2100. I love the boat but on the maiden voyage it pulled super hard to the starboard side. It was a bear to even hold straight. I checked the torque control rudder on the 175hp Johnson and it was adjusted all the way to one side. I moved it a couple degrees at a time and it got better but I am now all the way out of adjustment the other way. It is much better now but still pulls pretty good to the starboard. If I let go of the wheel it will carve hard right.

Any ideas on what I can do to get it to track straight?
 
Congrats on your 2100, D.O. I can't really add anything to the top two suggestions.


Your torque tab should be pointing a few degrees to Port from straight to compensate for normal torque steer that attempts to steer your boat to starboard. If you now have your trim tab all the way to starboard, it is no wonder you are having problems! you now have the torque of the prop as well as the torque tab steering you as hard as possible to starboard. I would suggest that you re-set the torque tab back to a few degrees to port, and then try your boat again with a boat load that is as unladen as possible. Consider what really heavy items you and and their locations (i.e. batteries and kicker). fill your tank to half full, have two people on the boat of about the same weight and try to keep everything else as equal as possible from side to side. Get you boat up to cruising plane and hopefully you should feel a very slight pull to starboard from the torque steer.

Another consideration is how deep on the transom is your motor set?

 
depth of your outboard as mentioned by finaddict is the likely culprit. You may also be overpropped , that will cause a flop to starboard. Striper produced a few stepped hulls , if this is one the outboard needs to be professionally set up.

beemer
 
Great advice above. Your condition seems too extreme to be caused by one thing. If you were to look closely at the stern area with the boat empty in the water at the dock does it sit deeper in the water on port versus starboard? (does it tilt to one side?)
 
Thanks for the reply's. I don't have trim tabs on the boat (yet). but the 9.9 Yamaha H.T. kicker is on the starboard side for the weight factor. The keg on the motor is straight also. I turned the torque tab the way that the video said that you should turn the torque tab to correct a pull to the right and it indeed did get better but on my motor it can't turn near as far as it did in the video. Next time I have it out I will check the depth of the cavitation plate in the water when I am running.

I wasn't sure what you meant by a stepped hull Beemer, but I looked it up and based on the pictures I see my boat isn't a stepped hull. How do I tell what I have for a prop? It is a 4 blade that is all I know.

Thanks again for the help and info guys.
 
ericl, Yes it list's to the starboard side for sure. The kicker is mounted on that side. When running I have moved people around to get a level ride and it does still pull.
 
Another questions DO. Are your batteries also on the starboard side? My 2300 has the batteries on starboard and the kicker on port. This balances my boat very well. Motor is likely too deep and I would bet that the 4 blade prop is not helping at all with torque steer. The prop details are usually stamped on the outside of the hub.
 
My cousin had a similar problem on a Campion 682 as you said "It was a bear to even hold straight" . Turned out to be his hydraulic steering. He had air in one side of the line.
Bleed the lines and now works fine.
 
Also with the motor height are you guys suggesting that it is likely too low or too high?
god I love the internet , what would of taken two years to figure out , you have all the likely problems in a couple of hours. I was suggesting that the motor may be too low , I think finaddict posted a video. I would suggest that to start with the easiest fixes first. weight distribution , bleed the steering lines , engine height , trying different props and finally trim tabs.
Are to trimming the engine while underway?
 
Thank you SR. The fellow I bought the boat off of replaced the hydraulic lines at the end of last year. That sounds like a good candidate to look into there. I will still double check the engine height while running.

Yes Beemer I have been playing with the engine trimming to gain the smoothest ride in the chop.
 
Thank you SR. The fellow I bought the boat off of replaced the hydraulic lines at the end of last year.

Sounds like that could be it. I remember my cousin saying it was really hard to steer one way plus pulled to one side. He has a 300Hp Yamaha on his boat.
Hope that fixes it but please let us all know what the solution was. Always nice to know the fix in case it happens to us!
 
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if there is air in the system you will be able to move the engine side to side by hand
 
Do a reset on you trim tabs by bringing then all the way up and then adjust a little as necessary. They are for balancing the boat side to side only to correct for slight side to side lean from weight distribution or to be used in a tight turn temporarily to flatten the boat out some in the turn. Add a small amount of trim as you go into the turn and remove it as you come out of the turn. I count the number of taps on the rocker switch so I know how much trim went on and how much to take off. Trim tabs are not really for adjusting bow up bow down situations as that is the job of the trim on the leg/s/motor. If you get the trim tabs way out of balance something really nasty can happen. The boat can develop a condition called bow steering which is a nightmare and I learned about it the hard way. As you start off on the main and slowly increase speed the bow will quickly dive down, turn and dig in to one side and the more power you apply the more it will dig in and force a turn. In a bad case the effect can be startling with things flying around the boat and a sense of complete lack of control. To fix it bring both tabs all the way up then if you have any side to side lean adjust a little to compensate,, a little at a time using the tap method. This may not be you problem but a bad case of this will cause a forced turn and steering will not help and will get worse the faster you try to go. It can seem like your bow is trying to dive underwater to the side forcing a tight turn. I think this happens when you use the tabs to off set each other and get them both two far down and out of balance. In most cases you just want to adjust the one tab a little. If your tabs ar very large for the boat this is more likely to happen if you get them badly trimmed. I just noticed you don't have tabs on the boat yet but if you get them this is good info so I will leave it.
 
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Thanks Rockfish, I don't have trim tabs on my boat but I appreciate the info because I plan to have trim tabs before next season. Also, NoLuck, I can push my motor side to side by hand. I didn't know that I shouldn't be able to do that.
 
there should be very little movement, do you have play in the steering wheel as well?
 
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