Here is a crude hand drawn not to scale pic of my pad. For some reason it will not post as a thumbnail - click on the "H0001.pdf" and you will see it. Or scroll down a couple of posts - I figgured out how to make it work.
There are no means of previewing a .pdf file in any browser. It has to be downloaded/opened. Only image files can be displayed as thumbnails.
tj, you can probably find help on the Hydrostream forum. That boat has the reputation for being good handling, if that can be said about any pad v. The tunnel boats like the STV and Mirage have the reputation of being easy to drive. They also ride better in chop. jim
I had a hot tunnel but was afraid of blowback and so sold it. I have had V's, pad V's and flatbottoms all my life and just feel more comfortable in them. I bought the Venom based on it's reputation as a well handling boat and it certainly is light and day compared to my earlier V-king.
The guy that I bought the Mirage from felt like that. It turned out that he did not know how to drive it. Neither did I. I called the owner of the company and after he briefed me it was no problem. It is not intuitive and backwards from a V. Driven properly it will not porpoise. A power chop at speed was no problem either. An aviation background gives you a good sense of pitch changes which makes it easier. The boat was pretty much a non event up to 100-105. Above that it would try to prop ride and I became concerned about breaking a prop blade or some other type of failure. jim
I am also pretty intuitive about pitch with my background. When I drove my tunnel I could feel when it started to fly and kept the trim pretty close to neutural. I do the same with the Venom. I think my main problem is slack in the hydraulic steering because I talked to a guy that can drive a V-king over 100 and he said it is all about small steering inputs one you are going fast and trimmed properly. I would think that a tunnel would mitigate those small steering inputs and rely more on proper trim. I also think my best course of action would be to 1st bleed the steering and if that does not work trade the Venom for a tunnel. You cannot have a blowback with negative trim.
Yes you can, you are thinking V. If mine porpoised it had too much negative trim. The previous owner tried adding weight to the bow which made it worse. I launched with full nose down trim to limit bow rise and held constant up trim to prevent porpoising. Once it hit 80 with proper trim it would slowly start to pitch up as the tunnels started passing air out the stern. (flying) It needed some down trim at the point. Too much down trim would start the porpoising. At that point you need to slow down and start over to avoid adding up trim at high speed. One trim setting for all regimes is dangerous. It is the porpoising that will get you into trouble. jim
