My boat is a turd and it has me stumped. Boat is 1748 square chine all 1/8" with a solid light gauge floor and a 2009 27hp Prodrive. The boat by itself weighs around 650lbs. I was able to get it to touch 20mph a few times running in 8' - 10' of water, but it mostly stayed around the 16 mph range. Now the max I can get running the same conditions is 8 - 10 with a tail wind. Even in shallow cuts I'm only getting about 14 mph.

The back end squats real bad even with my old man (240ish lbs.) sitting at the very front of the boat. I don't have enough trim to get the prop where it needs to be. Even trimmed all the way up, the prop is fully submerged when I'm running. I measured the transom height and realized it was only 18". I added a jack plate and will get about about 12 - 13 mph, but I still don't have enough trim with it jacked all the way up to a 22" transom height. The transom is a cutback style. 4" up and 4" into the floor. I have a feeling this is one of the issues with making it squat so bad.

I'm at a complete loss on what to do. Talk about embarrassing leaving the launch and getting smoked by longtails. Not to mention the hour it takes me to get to my blind in the morning when it only took 15 minutes riding in a buddies rig. Does anybody out there have some recommendations on how to fix this? I'll post a few pictures of the setup in the back.

Cutback transom.JPG

jack plate.jpg

transom angle.jpg

A whole view of the boat

profile.jpg

Rip that jack plate off.

...double post. I think my mouse is sticking.

Other than getting a new boat which is what everyone is about to tell you.. Look at some transom wedges. It's probably not the height of the motor so much as just the transom angle is off and you aren't getting enough trim. Even if you had the motor up high enough to get the prop out of the water it would still be running at a downward angle and not giving you enough lift to get the front up. The back is probably just squatting so bad because it's not getting up on plane.

Talk to prodrive about the angle of the transom necessary for your motor and height. They'll steer you in the right direction of fixing your issues.

Anyone else think the boat is under powered? (Unless you're hunting a hp restricted area) I would've put a bigger motor on that size boat.

It's not necessarily ideal power, but that 27 is more than capable on a 1748. Should be near 23 or so solo, 18 or so with 3. It'll definitely plane out and not struggle that much once it's setup correctly.

Jack plate is coming off right now and transom height is being built up to 19-1/2". I had a feeling that the jack plate would push the motor too far back..... Lesson learned.

The transom angle is between 15 and 16 degrees. I believe that is the correct angle needed for a Prodrive. New motor and boat are not financially feasible. I'll have to figure out how to make this one work. Like Russ said; the 27 hp isn't ideal, but it's what I could afford at the time and will have to work for at least a few years. I was expecting to get around 20 mph with it. Definitely disheartened by what I'm getting right now.

I'll run it this weekend and see how it does with the new transom height and no jack plate. I was hoping to get away without having to box in the cutback on the transom. Do y'all think some wedges welded to the bottom would alleviate the squatting issue?

The motor is a tall or short transom?

tall

That notch isn't helping anything I can tell ya.

Sounds like a prop to me. My gtr went from running 26 to running 18 and it was because the prop got chewed up by sand

That's a lot of weight hanging on the back of a 1748 to begin with, adding the jack plate made that even more extreme. As others mentions, a Prodrive doesn't really care for the notched transom on the bottom of the boat. The water will naturally rise behind the boat worsening the effect.

You are headed in the right direction by removing the jack plate and raising the transom. Next thing would be to have the bottom of the hull squared off, boxed as suggested above. Banded has one of, if not the fastest 1748 with a Prodrive, and he originally built his hull with the notch at the bottom, later he boxed it in and it made a very noticeable improvement.

A do check your prop, it could very well be adding to the situation. Measure it tip to tip.

When you want more power and have the money, just take that 27 off and slap on a big block Kawasaki.