Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Bassin,
The bolt holes are there to optimize the rig rather than have the motor sit in it's most inefficient postion on the transom. I agree not all transoms are built the same, but when motors are designed, engineers are not going to put bolt holes where the motor will guarantee itself to fail due to bolt hole position and no water pressure (UNDER NORMAL OPERATING CONDITIONS). Nor will boat designers make a transom that guarantees the same thing (UNDER NORMAL OPERATING CONDITIONS). Even though a motor starts to ventilate, it does not mean that it is losing water pressure. Engineers design these motors and test these items extensively before full production takes place, in many different conditions to make sure that losing pressure would not be due to their miscalculations. That would have law-suit written all over it. Same goes for boat designers as well.
Do you run the risk of losing pressure? Yes..to a degree, depending on how hard the operator pushes their rig in adverse conditions that are not part of normal usage by disregarding everything (hard turning without trimming down a touch to keep the prop hooked up and the front end to dig a little as an example...letting it blow out, but not down throttle)
In normal situations, without a jack plate, the motor will function just fine..it's a matter of how the operator chooses to have it run, beit high or low on the transom. Higher is faster, but less favorable handling is the result. Lower allows for nicer handling, but increases drag (and thus speed).
The idea of the bolt holes is to find a good balance between handling and speed. Once that position is found, everything works at it's best.
One also has to remember the hole in the water the boat makes. that hole fills in faster than one may think...It has to by nature...
Steve
Edited by VMS 2/19/2003 12:34 PM
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