jon boat plowing at high speeds

Good day all, we did some testing over the weekend and last night. Here is what we experienced and figured out. We carefully removed the paint the previous owner placed off the tag to read the HP rating and Triton has it at 60HP. We took the prop off my 40HP which has the same pitch but is about 1″ smaller in diameter than the stainless one. The RPM’s were not audibly noticeable difference between them, there was 1 MPH difference between them. The trim with the smaller prop had a minor improvement but still not wants to plow at WOT, not real bad just with a small chop on the water everyone in the boat gets drenched from the spray. We tried moving the batteries for the trolling motor to the back with both props. There was no effect with that. I (208 LB’s) moved from front to back I affected the boat but nothing to really mention. So we started to play around with the speed if drop down to 20-25 MPH the trim has a more noticeable effect and we can trim the front of the boat up to eliminate the splashing. At 20-25 you can feel that there is more of the rear of the boat is in the water and as throttle up to WOT you can feel the transition of the boat from being in the water to being on the water. You can feel the boat flatten out to be parallel to the surface of the water there is where the tilt trim becomes almost un-affective. Even though the Triton Mod V jon is heavier than my Smokercraft Mv jon the Triton rides more on top of the water than the Smokercraft does. That could be due to the Triton has at least 1-2 Feet of width over the Smokercraft. What we took from this experience is the Triton needs to be driven with more attention to water conditions, even the smallest change will affect the operation of this boat. Thank you for all the post.

“So we started to play around with the speed if drop down to 20-25 MPH the trim has a more noticeable effect and we can trim the front of the boat up to eliminate the splashing. At 20-25 you can feel that there is more of the rear of the boat is in the water and as throttle up to WOT you can feel the transition of the boat from being in the water to being on the water.”
I think you answered your question here. This is usually attributed to motor height.

We had the jack plate all the way down which puts the cavitation plate almost 2″ below the bottom of the boat which is almost a whole 1″ lower than Mercury recommends for motor placement. I feel confident that even dropping the motor to 3″ is not going to make a difference but I could be wrong. I have kicked around the idea of contacting triton and getting their thoughts. That is if anyone will answer my questions.

Did you try going up with the jack plate so you aren’t shoving the nose down?

yes we have, at WOT you can jack the motor out of the water or trim the motor out of the water it has very little effect on the bow ride height. it just cavates like it should when the motor runs out of water.

Sounds like an issue with the hull or prop if you can’t get the bow up with the motor as low at it will go. My 1448 flatbottom with a 25HP has an CNC tilt and trim that sets the motor back about 5 inches and my motor is now about 2″ higher than what it would be if clamped directly to the transom and it runs really close to the way it should. When I bought my 1654 grizzly with a 40HP it was a bear to steer and the bow was in the air more than I liked until I raised the motor one hole

we tried different props and with the jack plate we have tried different heights and the hull is straight without defects

Make sure you do not have a hook in the back of the hull near the transom. It is not real common but it does happen. It will make your bow plow