More on VP DPE 290's

[Morpheous]

I was reading the other thread on these legs with interest. I'm now coming to the end of my first year in my SS Portofino 31 - and still can't seem to observe any difference when I trim them!

So what is the theory, what should I be doing with them?

When I say no difference, the only noticable effect is trimming them up makes the pointy end stick up higher meaning I can see less! Although this was quite useful when I had a big following sea and the pointy bit was getting wetter than I was comfortable with.

From a trim perspective the boat seems to feel happier trimmed level, I usually use the tabs to get this right. These I am aware are drag but it only seems to take a little. The legs I just leave right down all the time, indicators reading about -5.

Into a head wind I also use the tabs to push the bow down to stop it slamming too much over the chop - which can be pretty wicked in the Bristol Channel. I'm sure I'm missing something here

Any thoughts or advice?

 

[Pendana]

The trim of boats do differ depending on how they are loaded etc.
Try trimming the boat on a calm day to start with, sometimes there is hardly any noticable difference. With legs trimmed in (-5 in your case) get on the plane to a comfortable steady cruise. Without touching the throttles, trim out the legs 1 degree at a time and note for the same throttle setting an increase in revs and speed. Continue doing this untill for the next degree of trim out you get a decrease in revs and speed. Trim back to that value that gave you maximum revs and speed. Make a note of the trim value for future reference for similar loads and sea conditions. As said before you may not note a great difference but on some boats it makes quite a bit of difference.

Eddie

 

[RIN]

I was reading the other thread on these legs with interest. I'm now coming to the end of my first year in my SS Portofino 31 - and still can't seem to observe any difference when I trim them!

So what is the theory, what should I be doing with them?

When I say no difference, the only noticable effect is trimming them up makes the pointy end stick up higher meaning I can see less! Although this was quite useful when I had a big following sea and the pointy bit was getting wetter than I was comfortable with.

From a trim perspective the boat seems to feel happier trimmed level, I usually use the tabs to get this right. These I am aware are drag but it only seems to take a little. The legs I just leave right down all the time, indicators reading about -5.

Into a head wind I also use the tabs to push the bow down to stop it slamming too much over the chop - which can be pretty wicked in the Bristol Channel. I'm sure I'm missing something here

Any thoughts or advice?

I have exactly the same on my Princess 286. Any trimming out of the legs results in a decrease in engine revs so I leave them at -5. The only positive effect I get is from the trim tabs which I raise slightly (4 seconds worth - no indicators) which gains a knot or two in good conditions