Hey guys, im new to the sight and recently purchased my first MM about two months ago. I bought a GO-DEVIL 23hp LT pushing a 16ft skiff. This rig was originally built for hunting in VENICE, LA but since I have gotten the boat I have found that I need a wider, and more versatile boat due to the fact that I like to catch frogs and do the occasional fishing thing. Im very pleased with my motor and have no complaints. It runs EVERYTIME I pull the cord and thats what I love about it. here are some pics of my current rig..... Im not getting great speeds out of it and I think its because the boat is heavy but im not totally sure. I had some problems with my "cavitation plate" and thought that might be the answer but when I had it fixed the speeds stayed the same. Thanks for looking guys and let me know what you think!!

here are some pics of the "bent cavitation plate" before I fixed it....

and now what it looks like fixed......

the cavitation plate was probably bent to keep it running at the right depth. Have you ran it since you fixed it?

Yes I have run it since and it seemed to run just as it did before..... depth wise that is.... It was definitely bent on purpose because you can see where someone took plyers of vise grips and bent the metal back. The guy I bought it from didnt know anything about it and so I just figured that could be part of my lack of speed. It didnt fix my speed problems though....

good looking dog you got on the front of that boat

What rpm rang are you running at? Could be a number of things. Worn prop, or your engine could be starving for fuel. Mine was plowing big time and I called gd and they said it could have some blockage in the carb which will result in a decreased rpm range and lack of speed. Had the carb
cleaned and blown out and the rpms picked back up and so did the speed.

I like that tall rake on that skiff.

You could pull the valve covers off and count... Or cut a splice in the spark plug wire, hold it and count how many times you get shocked...


Seriously though, get a tach! They're like 50 bucks. Money well spent.

you think your plowin now wait till you put it on a shorter boat

I'm an elite member and my 1442 plows jus the same as anybody elses...

Long and narrow when I reboat... I adore that skiff.

I had a 24 honda longtail on a 14x42 for a while.With 1 person it ran pretty good but with 2 or more and dog it was a turd.I bought an 18x38 Go Devil boat and with 1 person speeds were about the same but the long boat still planed out and ran good with a heavy load.Also,that shop built boat probably is .125 and has longitudinal runners and will be in service long after that Alweld has been recycled into lawnchairs and beercans.

I would also agree that a longer boat will help to plane a heavier load. I would go a foot or two longer before going a foot or two shorter.

Well my thinking behind it is that this skiff is super heavy.... And the new boat is a lighter and wider boat. I'm not sure exactly how the whole 'displacement' of the water works but I thought short and wide would be better than skinny, long, and heavy??

Longer and skinnier work better with any long tail. Go Devil will even tell ya that.

What speeds should I be getting with this boat motor combo? I'm currently pushing 15mph with just me and gas in it. And around 12 with any type of load.

Sounds a lil on the slow side. What's ur prop look like?

hey b yes some women have 9mm so do u still want to sand in front
? lol

Is your motor wound all the way up?
Is the prop worn?
Are there any hooks in the hull?

Just some things it could be..

I had a heavy 1754 skiff(the one in my avatar) and it would plow like a sob(13-15 gps), but I traded it for a 1542 war eagle and im very pleased with it the boat handles better and im at 20-22 on the gps with the war eagle. It also gets on plane unlike the skiff I had. Another thing you might want to look at if you havent already is moving your gas tanks and batteries to the front of the boat to help with load distribution. Mud motors are heavy so the less weight you have in the back the better off you are.

nice boat higgs what happened to the guy with 5 post i think yall scared him off

Yall all had 5 posts at one time.

But now we have hundreds and thousands. That makes us smarter, right?

Yeah!!!

What Higgs isn't saying is that the boat was originally a square bow. The dude added that rake to push threw the reeds. During this process it left a section of the front where to pieces of metal meet. When he spreads his weight it seems to make that thing like a bulldozer blade
Higgs get a picture of that. And don't leave your sh!t at WTS with me and b because it's likely for me to drink crown and wreck it or your boat motor and trailer end up diffrent place

yea higgs tell them the entire story!! this was made into a skiff recently and it has two nice size scoops under the rake from hitting stumps im assuming. there is no way in hell that 23GDLT should be going that sloww ..... I dont know what his speed problem is but it definitely aint the motor cause that thing runs WTFO and doesnt even think about getting on a step. The prop seems to be in good condition from what I can tell...

well here s another post that makes six smart ass i had a 1448 and it plowed like a bulldozer loaded not loaded it would get on plane and move on i got a 1546 now and its alot better loaded or not rule of thumb longers always better for the lt i got a 12 foot with a 5.5 lt and its the same way by myself itll scoot and add another man and its like using a trollin motor

well Guys I decided not to trade out my boat with the 1442 because the guy who had been sending me pics of his boat made it look waaaayyyy nicer than what it really was. I think he is still trying to sell or trade that POS somewhere on here so yall be careful. Me and Bpurvis drove up friday afternoon to look at it and we were not impressed to say the least ..... so with that over now Im making it my mission to increase my speads on this skiff. any ideas??? Ive checked the prop and its brand new from GD... and I a tune up on it as soon as i got it through GD.... Im going to order a tachometer this week and get it put on so I can get a better idea of the rpms im running.... thanks in advance!!

If you quit hanging out with that cack sucker bpurvis that may help your speeds some.

you ain't gotta quit hanging out with him. just don't bring him in the boat. He's just 200 pounds of dead useless wieght

useless unless im on the tiller handle boy!!

yeah starting your enigne with a screwdriver