Can you do anything to get a float bottom tin to ride better

Is there anything you can do get get a flat bottom Tin to ride a little better in light chop about 1 ft or less? I have. 2014 tracker Topper 15 with a 2014 20 hp Merc tiller handle. It rides great in the creeks. I realize a flat bottom is not going to ride smooth like a v hull. I'm just wondering if anybody has found anything that will help a little. I friend told me that he added a CM jackplate with power tilt and trim to his 16 ft flat bottom with a 40 hp tiller and that it made a big improvement to boat when in choppy water. I' m wondering if a hydrofoil might help by holding the nose down more. I'm going to also be adding a deck to the front using wood so I'm hoping a little more weight up front might help. My boat planes out fine and with just me and fishing gear in a flat creek the gps shows my top speed at 25 mph. I would appreciate any feedback.

I know this may sound "out of turn", and I truly do not mean it that way.

I've seen guys, and gals, load a cooler full of beer and ice and set it up front for weight. Wouldn't have to be beer, I suppose, could be sodas, water, etc... Nevertheless, it adds weight to the front.

Just a thought......

What I do is move weight to one side of the boat. This will give you more of a v hull effect.

If you can get the nose down it will help but you also sacrifice performance, the more the hull contacts the water the more drag and the less speed, if you don’t care about speed then just tilt the motor down a notch. A hydrofoil might help but there is only one way to find out and that is to try it, sometimes they do sometimes not so mush.

What I learned, really close to "the hard way", weight distribution. I forgot about the livewell being up front in my G3 and filling it to stop the bounce.

Slowing down is #1! #2 would be taking the chop at the best angle ... but it may not correlate to the direction you really need to go. #3 would be following in another boat's wake.

But even on my 25' heavy boat, I will intentionally trim the boat, using trim tabs, to raise the weather/sea state side of the hull UP and OUT of the chop. I also run a fuel computer on that boat and I can dial in a good 10-20% improvement in fuel efficiency by doing so. Plus the ride smooths out too!

However, trimming a BIG boat is inherently much more safer than trimming a small boat where you can really only affect trim by moving your load. It could result in a dangerous situation!

Thanks guys for the feedback. Currently I fill the live well in the front bench. I have my trolling motor battery in front of the front bench plus my trolling motor mounted on the front bow. (Minn Kota Endura C2) That all helps some. As far as slowing down goes I come off plane when I slow down. I'm just trying to determine if it is worth spending the money on a hydrofoil if that will help any. I still have 4 years left on my motor warranty so I can't drill any holes in it or it will void the warranty. I found an SE Sport 200 hydrofoil for around $50 then the sport clip (drill free) adapter is another $50. I don't want to spend $100 and no notice a difference. If it will help then it will be money well spent to me. I know it is not going to ride like a fiberglass boat but I do want to make it ride the best I can for what it is. It is great until I get on the river where the wind creates a chop. Thanks again for all the feedback.

back when I had a 1542 flat bottom (vee bow), I tried a foil. Did nothing for ride quality. Planed a little quicker but I did the exact same thing without the foil by using a 4 blade prop-which also ran smoother. Moved the battery and cooler full of catfish to the bow of the boat and that helped a little but slowed the boat down from 27mph to around 22. In my opinion, no matter how hard you try to make a flat bottom boat ride better, there's only so much you can do. The flat bottom jon, in it's inherent design, sacrifices ride quality for stability.

You gotta be tough to own a jon.

Or use them for slow moving on protected water like they were designed for...

There's no much you can do. Light weight planing hull...that's how it rides in chop.

A flat bottom boat is going to bounce on the chop if it's on plane where you want it to be - the only safe thing (from a control standpoint - the boat should handle the stress though prolonged exposure might bring out the leaks in a riveted jon). The advantage to the hydrofoil is it will get you on plane on a lower speed - so you won't be hitting the chop with as much energy and it won't be as painful, and it will keep the boat closer to level getting on the plane (substantially reduce bow-rise) when properly installed. If your motor isn't installed correctly that's your first issue.

3/4" plywood flooring, decked front for more weight, and if you're feeling brave, add weight to your center keel on the bottom of your boat, either by welding a 3/16" strip of aluminum the width and length of your keel, or some cut-down u-channel with 1/8" wall thickness that is the same width of your center keel, (cut the u-channel down so the overall height of the "U" is 3/4" (you might be able to buy this exact size from speedymetals.com) (I would buy it in 4 foot sections, keeps shipping costs down). This should help the boat grab the water better instead of just slapping it. Just make sure if you add anything to the center keel to sand and round out the new sharp corners so they don't chew up your trailer rollers, plus, sharp corners lose paint the fastest.

DaleH said:

Slowing down is #1! #2 would be taking the chop at the best angle ... but it may not correlate to the direction you really need to go. #3 would be following in another boat's wake.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. If I'm in a hurry, the first thing I do is look for that other boat to follow. If that' s not an option, I start reducing speed and turning a 45° angle to the chop and do a bit of zig-zag pattern so that I'm always running at an angle to the chop. Sort of like a sail boat that's trying to get to a point that is upwind of it's current location. Once I get on that angle, I gradually bring the speed back up as much as I can stand and hang with that until I get where I'm going or can turn out of the chop completely.

All of that is only if I'm in a hurry, but since I'm semi retired, I don't get in a hurry about too many things these days. :mrgreen:

JMichael said:

DaleH said:

#3 would be following in another boat's wake.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Always remember with this one that by doing so you are sitting just a little lower in the water than the boat you are following, as you are basically in a trough that he has smoothed out in front of you. Tore the transom out of an old Ouachita doing this on Lake Millwood once upon a time.

I know this may sound "out of turn", and I truly do not mean it that way.

I've seen guys, and gals, load a cooler full of beer and ice and set it up front for weight. Wouldn't have to be beer, I suppose, could be sodas, water, etc... Nevertheless, it adds weight to the front.

Click to expand...

I suspect the is true. Enough beer will either make your flat bottom boat ride better or make you not care that it rides poorly. :LOL2:
(J/k - boat responsibly)

When you say choppy water you're referring to wind waves right? Not boat wakes? Only ask because the comments on the boat wakes RE: hitting them @ 45 deg angle are all fine and good, but random wind wave activity will still chatter your teeth.

You could get you a chunky girlfriend and put her up front....

akbejeepin said:

You could get you a chunky girlfriend and put her up front....

Click to expand...

speaking from experience, it's not that easy. Boat may ride better but when you get back to the ramp and for the next few hours, it becomes apparent that it wasn't worth it.

one of the things I remember the most when I sold the bass boat and got into a 1542 Grumman.

The bass boat-I could comfortably run across a 10" to 12" chop (wind chop) at 50 mph, and it wasn't too bad of a ride. Actually rode great but remember...boats don't have any shocks or springs. I sold it, bought a 1542 Grumman with a 25. First thing I noticed. Wind chop beats me to death. I mean my back hurts occasionally but that thing just made my back HURT-bad. To the point that if there was any chop in the water, I didn't even want to go fishing because I knew after the trip it was going to be painful, and if I had to clean any fish....forget it. Catch and release.

Sold that boat, kept the motor, bought the War Eagle 548. Rides 100x better than the Grumman did. It still is no 50mph boat and I still find myself slowing down over any significant wind chop, but it does a better job of cutting the little waves. The bigger ones...like 10" or more, slow down, like off plane and ride them slow. Especially on the bigger lake when I've navigated 24" swells (when I would top one and head down into the valley of another, they were higher than the boat's sides are tall). Stuff like that you don't want to be on the water anyway and honestly don't see how I made it back to the ramp without getting soaked.

Hull plays into the ride...a LOT. And not all jon's are built the same. Dad's 1432 rides like poo. But the one I used to have rod a LOT better than his does. We're talking small chop in either one of those....6" or less. Both are lightweight, set up almost identical just different style hull design. Mine had 2 less ribs and a vee bow but still a flat bottom.

Then there's the river "drift" boats (I call 'em trout boats". TOTALLY flat bottom, no ribs just flat. They are banana shaped from front to rear generally. They handle chop and wake suprisingly good if you hit them head on but side wake, no so much. I actually like those boats....a LOT...for their intended purpose. On a big lake or anywhere that you need to make sharp turns, forget it. Rented a 2036 (20' long 36" bottom) a year or so ago on the upper White River in Arkansas for a trout fishing vacation. It had a Yamaha 40/30 jet powering it-which I'm familiar with. Loved the boat. Ran in just a couple inches of water at wide open throttle, only about 20 mph or so at full throttle but it's purpose isn't speed...it's to get on plane instantly and run real shallow, and if you get stuck on a sand bar the totally flat bottom makes it a LOT easier to get it floating again. But they ride surprisingly good!