Never having been one to be deterred by common sense and accrued wisdom, I kept on chewing on ways to get the bow down of the 12ft boat. I put a 50lb sack of garden lime in the front, figuring that, at worst, the bow would be smacked by a wave and catapult the sack back to hit me in the forehead.
At best, it would balance the weight in the boat.
But I had a few days before I could get the boat out, having had a lapse of judgement and buying a 14ft Alumacraft F. I've just finished going over that poor derelict for the fifth time. I am really tired of scouring scum and oxidation, rotten carpet, dead bugs, and 15-year old lichen bits off the hull.
In the meantime, I was reading about tabs, and fins, and how they only work for bigger boats going up on plane, BUT keeping the bow down.
Why, I reasoned, wouldn't they have a similar effect on a smaller boat, even if it wasn't going to plane?
So...
took some lexan, got out my trusty Sportsman's Goop (like silicone), a couple of clamps and made a really crude fin for the ... er...defibrillator...uh...homogenizer...turmoil eliminator...****...that fin above the propeller. I figured part of its function would be to redirect the water movement down and backwards and mitigate the push up by the prop. (Well, it made sense at the time.)
I reckoned it would be dislodged by the force of the water, but didn't want to drill and bolt anything to the motor. The Goop can be taken off with no damage to the metal. It stayed put during the test runs.
Had the boat out today. Again, it was windy, 10-15 mph, mid-40's, with a front pushing thunderstorms our way. I launched the boat, warmed it up, and accelerated with the wind at my back.
Whether it was the weight in front (probably), or the combination of the weight and lexan thingie, the little boat stayed on form, using its bow to cut water, rather than rising up above it. Going back into the wind, got some slap, but nothing at all like the previous times out. It bounced up a bit, but came right back down into the next wave.
Boat is really too small to play in water like that, and the hull design was never made for choppy or rough conditions, but this stuff happens. I'm much more comfortable with it now.
Here's the defibrillator:
(I know it is silly, but it was kind of fun to think I did more than add a sack of lime to the boat.)
If we EVER get some mild weather, I'll take the lime out and try just the fin. As it was, I was really cold by the time this outing was over.