Boat pulls to the left

[MNdrifter]

Most of the time I'm on the water I have to have the steering wheel between 1:00 and 2:00. Where is the best place to adjust this? Remove the wheel and put back on straight? Behind the console? At the jets?

 

[sysinu]

Mine does the same thing, I assumed it had to do with pitch differences between the engines since when my wheel is at 12:00 the drives are square 90degrees from the transom.

 

[MNdrifter]

I can't find it now but I thought I there was a thread about aiming the jets slightly towards each other to improve handling. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

 

[itsdgm]

The pull is due to the rotational forces of the engines. Yamaha counteracts this by pitching the impellers differently. But it seems like some years/models were better balanced than others.

 

[txav8r]

This is an extremely hard thing to adjust. Primarily because what you see today will be different tomorrow depending on what the wind/waves are doing and which way you are going based on them. I have had my wheel in both 10 o'clock and in 2 o'clock, on the same day. We don't have a rudder, and you have to counter the effects with directional thrust. I am willing to bet in time, that you will find that the wheel direction changes, and any change you make in how it is set, will affect it more in no wind/wave conditions when just cruising in a straight line. At the least, give is some comparable outings to determine if it is constant.

 

[MNdrifter]

I've put 50 hours on the boat this year. I've paid attention to the wind and waves. It is very rare that I have the wheel left of 12:00 even with the wind from port. In the evening on the way back to the harbor with no wind and flat water I'm at 1:30.

 

[txav8r]

With that information, the question is this...is it steering wheel position or is it nozzle position? Most of your steering adjustment will be at the nozzles. Your going to have to take measurements and see where your wheel is centered, and if you have full range motion left and right, and is it symmetrical. Meaning, do the nozzles turn left the same distance from center that they do to the right. The hard part is this, adjusting the wheel or the nozzles, will not change what may be causing a drag to need off center thrust. Several guys in the past have discovered that their ride plate was on the boat at an angle and causing a list. Check the two ride plates for being symmetrical too. And as @itsdgm mentions, you have twin engines and the impellers are not counterrotating, so you have forces at play that Yamaha has attempted to counter with different pitch impellers. If you feel certain that it is off, then your options are to let the dealer take a look at it, or start troubleshooting. While it is common on a jet boat to have to counter forces more dramatically in wheel position, it isn't common that they are off center when it comes to zero force control. It isn't likely, but you could have the wrong pitch impeller installed in one pump or the other...or both.

 

[Daniel]

I just run a couple hundred more rpm's on my left engine, it makes steering easier

 

[Julian]

I can't find it now but I thought I there was a thread about aiming the jets slightly towards each other to improve handling. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

Yes, one of the Australian members posted this. Had a friend who was a competition jet boat racer and they'd determined that a boat tracked better when the nozzles were slightly pointed inwards towards each other.

 

[Noko]

With that information, the question is this...is it steering wheel position or is it nozzle position? Most of your steering adjustment will be at the nozzles. Your going to have to take measurements and see where your wheel is centered, and if you have full range motion left and right, and is it symmetrical. Meaning, do the nozzles turn left the same distance from center that they do to the right. The hard part is this, adjusting the wheel or the nozzles, will not change what may be causing a drag to need off center thrust. Several guys in the past have discovered that their ride plate was on the boat at an angle and causing a list. Check the two ride plates for being symmetrical too. And as @itsdgm mentions, you have twin engines and the impellers are not counterrotating, so you have forces at play that Yamaha has attempted to counter with different pitch impellers. If you feel certain that it is off, then your options are to let the dealer take a look at it, or start troubleshooting. While it is common on a jet boat to have to counter forces more dramatically in wheel position, it isn't common that they are off center when it comes to zero force control. It isn't likely, but you could have the wrong pitch impeller installed in one pump or the other...or both.

you

If you are a fat ass like me, the boat is always pulling to the right unless the whole family sits on the port side.

 

[lashburn1]

I just run a couple hundred more rpm's on my left engine, it makes steering easier

^^^ I did that too...But I could not stand the Sound of the Engines not in Perfect sync...LOL