Newbie question on navigating chop in Chesapeake Bay

[motomandan]

I am out of the Patuxent river , by Solomons Island. We should arrange a Get together!

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Agree with @VitaminSea about Gale Force Twins... they have some great boating vids. They run a 32’ twin engine intrepid, you’ve got a twin engine Yamaha, while the boats are different the concepts are the same.

Here’s one on rough water handling:

Here’s one on tight spaces maneuvering, you’ve got twin engines use them to your advantage. Center the wheel and just use the throttles individually for low speed maneuvering.

I’m also a first time boat owner and I’m still learning how to operate my boat as best as possible. Here’s a few things I’ve learned.

The Hump. The hump is where the bow of the boat is pointing the highest (bow rise) before coming onto plane, keeping the boat in this attitude is called riding the hump. Think of this attitude as having your shield up, this is a good attitude for bigger water, 3-4’ waves, for a smoother ride and a drier ride. There are two 210 FSH’s in this video, a fail at 34 seconds, and another at 3 mins 15 seconds which is how it is done properly.

The fail 210 FSH doesn’t have enough speed and has too much weight forward so the bow is down and predictably stuffs the bow. The second 210 FSH has more people in the boat and are properly located on the boat for weight distribution, and the operator has enough speed to keep the bow high as he hits the waves, the hull slaps a couple of times but is no danger of stuffing the bow into the water like the first boat.

-Speed control. Our boats directional control is directly proportional to how much thrust the engines are producing. When you were cruising at 15-18 mph, you were riding the the hump, bow high, and with marginal thrust, so it’s going to kind of wave the bow around, as @Elliott explained. Increasing your speed will bring the bow down and the boat will pick up speed ( on plane) and ride smoother through this small chop and you will have greater control authority with the steering wheel.

The jet drive system has no transmission so there is no delay in changing the direction of thrust, essentially the boat has brakes. This is “not to be taken lightly“ as the boat will stop very fast as reverse thrust is applied in greater amounts. Check out this vid at 3:36 seconds where captain Steve demonstrates this. Again, the boat stops very fast, nice to know the boat is capable of this.

@Julian makes some excellent points about waves! I will add that if the waves have low frequency, longer intervals between them sometimes you can just ride in the troughs for a while for a smoother and faster ride..I think the gale force twins vid I posted above talks about this. Sometimes the fastest route isn’t in a straight line, taking a course that either follows or goes into waves at an oblique angle can be a much smoother, drier and faster ride then tacking back the other way to get to your destination is the fastest course.

I accelerate full throttle to get the boat up on plane quickly then pull the throttles back and set the engines set at 6000 rpm and then use the cruise assist switch from there. ( some pretty good footage of 12-18” chop and cruise assist in action here at 3:25

) This stops you from making too big of throttle adjustments when hitting waves. Each click of the switch up or down changes the RPM’s by roughly 250 rpm I believe, which is perfect when adjusting speed to match the hull to the conditions. If you are in 1-2 chop adjust your speed so that the boat is not slapping into the waves. For my boat this is roughly 22 mph, this is a very comfortable dry ride even in head quartering seas with a stiff wind. If the waves start getting bigger I click down using the cruise assist switch slowing down slightly to adjust the speed down to where there might be the occasional slap but overall the boat is riding smooth. The cruise assist is a great tool. You will get the hang of it quickly, just experiment with different speeds in different conditions to find the smoothest ride, it will be pretty obvious when the hull settles in to the conditions.

 

[pres2028]

I am out of the Patuxent river , by Solomons Island. We should arrange a Get together!

Would love to! I'm 10 mins from Patuxent River Park and occasionally drive down to Benedict to fish from a pier there. Happy to trailer somewhere along the Patuxent once summer comes around.

 

[pres2028]

Agree with @VitaminSea about Gale Force Twins... they have some great boating vids. They run a 32’ twin engine intrepid, you’ve got a twin engine Yamaha, while the boats are different the concepts are the same.

Here’s one on rough water handling:

Here’s one on tight spaces maneuvering, you’ve got twin engines use them to your advantage. Center the wheel and just use the throttles individually for low speed maneuvering.

I’m also a first time boat owner and I’m still learning how to operate my boat as best as possible. Here’s a few things I’ve learned.

The Hump. The hump is where the bow of the boat is pointing the highest (bow rise) before coming onto plane, keeping the boat in this attitude is called riding the hump. Think of this attitude as having your shield up, this is a good attitude for bigger water, 3-4’ waves, for a smoother ride and a drier ride. There are two 210 FSH’s in this video, a fail at 34 seconds, and another at 3 mins 15 seconds which is how it is done properly.

The fail 210 FSH doesn’t have enough speed and has too much weight forward so the bow is down and predictably stuffs the bow. The second 210 FSH has more people in the boat and are properly located on the boat for weight distribution, and the operator has enough speed to keep the bow high as he hits the waves, the hull slaps a couple of times but is no danger of stuffing the bow into the water like the first boat.

-Speed control. Our boats directional control is directly proportional to how much thrust the engines are producing. When you were cruising at 15-18 mph, you were riding the the hump, bow high, and with marginal thrust, so it’s going to kind of wave the bow around, as @Elliott explained. Increasing your speed will bring the bow down and the boat will pick up speed ( on plane) and ride smoother through this small chop and you will have greater control authority with the steering wheel.

The jet drive system has no transmission so there is no delay in changing the direction of thrust, essentially the boat has brakes. This is “not to be taken lightly“ as the boat will stop very fast as reverse thrust is applied in greater amounts. Check out this vid at 3:36 seconds where captain Steve demonstrates this. Again, the boat stops very fast, nice to know the boat is capable of this.

@Julian makes some excellent points about waves! I will add that if the waves have low frequency, longer intervals between them sometimes you can just ride in the troughs for a while for a smoother and faster ride..I think the gale force twins vid I posted above talks about this. Sometimes the fastest route isn’t in a straight line, taking a course that either follows or goes into waves at an oblique angle can be a much smoother, drier and faster ride then tacking back the other way to get to your destination is the fastest course.

I accelerate full throttle to get the boat up on plane quickly then pull the throttles back and set the engines set at 6000 rpm and then use the cruise assist switch from there. ( some pretty good footage of 12-18” chop and cruise assist in action here at 3:25

) This stops you from making too big of throttle adjustments when hitting waves. Each click of the switch up or down changes the RPM’s by roughly 250 rpm I believe, which is perfect when adjusting speed to match the hull to the conditions. If you are in 1-2 chop adjust your speed so that the boat is not slapping into the waves. For my boat this is roughly 22 mph, this is a very comfortable dry ride even in head quartering seas with a stiff wind. If the waves start getting bigger I click down using the cruise assist switch slowing down slightly to adjust the speed down to where there might be the occasional slap but overall the boat is riding smooth. The cruise assist is a great tool. You will get the hang of it quickly, just experiment with different speeds in different conditions to find the smoothest ride, it will be pretty obvious when the hull settles in to the conditions.

Really appreciate this @FSH 210 Sport. Love the Gale Force Twins - going through their videos now - and the chop in the 2018 FSH review video is about identical to what I was facing the other day. Appreciate the advice. I did 2 more hours in the tributary today, so pretty soon will be able to go back to out to the Bay and try to get on plane. This will help.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Really appreciate this @FSH 210 Sport. Love the Gale Force Twins - going through their videos now - and the chop in the 2018 FSH review video is about identical to what I was facing the other day. Appreciate the advice. I did 2 more hours in the tributary today, so pretty soon will be able to go back to out to the Bay and try to get on plane. This will help.

Glad you found them useful! Hope you have a great time getting to know your boat!

 

[tabbibus]

wow . just watched the gale force on rotating. I'll be subscribing!

 

[Sean R]

Fins are fantastic for steering, I love mine. But we were still getting beat up on certain days in the Great Lakes. I just installed Trim Tabs, 10" x 14". They should be a game changer out on the water and make it more manageable and smoother, at least that is what was mentioned. I am hoping to be on the water the first time this weekend to test them out, weather permitting.

Hanging, I am looking forward to your write up on your new trim tabs. Weather doesn't look to good on Saturday, Sunday not bad just a little chilly.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

wow . just watched the gale force on rotating. I'll be subscribing!

Those girls are super cute and super happy ! And they have skills!

At low speeds in the marina and or docking I don’t touch the wheel... just throttles.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I see that I forgot to link the vid where I was talking about our boats having brakes...doh!

The jet drive system has no transmission so there is no delay in changing the direction of thrust, essentially the boat has brakes. This is “not to be taken lightly“ as the boat will stop very fast as reverse thrust is applied in greater amounts. Check out this vid at 3:36 seconds where captain Steve demonstrates this. Again, the boat stops very fast, nice to know the boat is capable of this.