When you are sitting dead in the w ater, your out-
board should be down and the trim tab switches
are in the BO W UP position. Accelerate until you
get onto plane. At this point your boat will be
plowing through the w ater with the bow down
too far. Trim the low er unit up slightly until the
bow comes up. If you trim the low er unit out too
far, your boat will por poise or the propeller will
cavitate, and the bow will slam up and down on
the water. Your boat is trimmed cor rectly when it
is just shor t of por poising or propeller ca vita-
tion, under ideal r unning conditions.
Trim your boat to compensate for seas, winds,
or uneven loads.
Remember that most boats react ver y slowly to
trim tabs. Often boat owner s do not give trim tabs
time to wor k. Press the trim tab switches for only
two seconds at a time and then allow some time
for the boat to react. If the boat is still listing after
a minute or two, press the trim tab switch again
for a two second inter val. The labels on the trim
tab switches indicate what you w ant your boat to
do, not what you w ant the tabs to do.
It is a good idea to tak e your boat out onto open
water shor tly after you get it and experiment
with the trim tabs. After you get your boat onto
plane, set the tabs in various positions and
note how your boat reacts. This will give you a
feel for how the trim tabs wor k.
It is possible to extend the cylinder life
expectancy on your trim tabs. T o do this, k eep
the cylinders retracted while at dockside. Press
both trim tab controls down until tabs reach
their full up position.
TILT/TRIM CONTROL SWITCHES
NOTE:
Trim refers to the angle of the low er unit
or outboard motor in relation to the bottom of
the boat. With respect to trimming , the words
in
,
down
,
under
, and
forward
, have the same
meaning as do
up
,
out
, and
aft
.
7-6
Head Seas
Trim drives in more than usual.
Use tabs to keep bow down
and go at a slower speed.
Following Seas
To prevent taking seawater
over the bow, trim drives out
and keep tabs up to keep bow
up.
Listing Due to
Use tabs independently to
Quartering Seas,
adjust for list. If listing to star-
Beam Wind, or
board, press port bow down
Uneven Load
switch. If listing to port, press
starboard bow down switch.
FIGURE 7.1 TRIMMING THE BOA T WITH TRIM T ABS
STARBOARD TAB LOWERED
• STARBOARD STERN RISES
• PORT BOW LOWERS
PORT TAB LOWERED
• PORT STERN RISES
• STARBOARD BOW LOWERS
STERN
TRIM TAB
HULL
AS WATER PASSES UNDER
THE HULL AND HITS THE
TRIM TAB, THE STERN OF
BOAT IS PUSHED UP.
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