get up on plane

I do exactly what you do with my 232 Gulfstream with twin 200 4-strokes. I can't believe that flooring it out of the hole time after time is ok.

I have heard that the F200 i4 does not have the low end torque that their 6 cylinder counterparts possess. This would translate into longer planing times and xtra throttle to get it over the top. The weight of the kicker astern is also a factor.

I have always driven and throttled up by feel. I've never timed the planing process. Barring anything abnormal, such as excessive water in the bilge, a wrong prop combo or marine growth on the hull, I would just plane as easily as possible without staying in the plowing mode.

the faster you get the motor to the rpm where it makes peak torque the better for the engine. you should only feather the throttle if you have so much power you get prop slippage. from the point the boat is starting to plow until it is fully on step is hard on a motor. there is no reason to prolong getting on plane.

think of it as outboards having only one "gear". that gear is the prop and it is optimized for higher rpms with the lower load of a boat on plane. until you get on plane you are lugging the engine the same as starting a car in fourth gear. that's why boat versions of car motors have heavy duty cam shafts.

I've got the same F200 4 stroke on my '15 208. It doesn't have the same punch out of the hole as the old 150 2 stroke that was on my '96, but it's better on the top end and way better on fuel.

I smoothly accelerate, continually advancing the throttle until I'm on plane. Usually 3 or 4 seconds and probably 3800-4000 RPM when things level off, and that's the RPM speed that I cruise at as long as conditions allow for it.

I don't open it up out of the hole, but I don't feather it either if you understand what I'm saying. Hope that helps.

I agree with Dave. "Pre-planing" speed feels horrible because it is. From a dead stop, advance the throttles (smoothly) to full or nearly full forward. They NEED rpm to make the proper power and overcome the gearing. As it comes on plane, smoothly back off the throttle to your happy place. Marine engines are engineered to operate this way and handle it just fine.

trapper said:

Thanks guys, I don't feather but do what firernailer does. So Susukidave you are saying to accelerate as fast as possible from low to high RPM to get on plane, and these 4 strokes are built to hammer the throttle? I am running a 17p Reliance prop and have accepted 5700 rpm as my WOT and get great gas milage and cruising speed and do not believe I am doing the engine any damage not reaching the optimum 6000 rpm. Thanks for your info and response. Cheers trapper

Click to expand...

a steady increasing application at near to full throttle is probably the same as hammering it. the engine is catching up to the selected throttle position/rpm all the way to on plane either way. I'm also not suggesting you hold the throttle on full all the way to wot. you can throttle back once you are fully on plane.

Get Up on Plane: Four-Bladed Screw

I ground my old prop from 17 inches to 16 inch diameter in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake. So when it was time to replace, I went with the recommendation of Chesapeake Bay Propellers ( Virginia ) and got the 4 bladed version. I'm up on plane in very quickly without beating the life out of the engine. In my boat the prop seems to lift the stern right up. And when throttling back, I stay up there.

You shouldn't fear 'revving' the motor to get on plane but you should'n go WOT normally to get on plane either.
Find out what revs will keep you on plane when on plane by slowly lowering revs until the hull starts to sit down (comes off plane).
Next time from a stop, rev the motor to that rev level plus 300 or so revs and see if the time to plane is acceptable. If so, that should be your starting point for typical conditions. Of course depending on conditions and load, you may want to give it a bit more gas. At some point you will find the revs that works best for your starts and that shouldn't be WOT

The torque curves of 4 strokes are different than 2s and the low end torque (lower revs) is often a lot less than torque at higher revs. The torque curve for 2s is flatter.
A 4 blade prop will generally increase low end effective torque but may reduce top end speed and overall fuel economy. It all depends on what your priorities are.
Enjoy your boating.

Well put, Seasick. Enjoyed your last comment about the priorities. I'm not going to win a race with anyone, even with the 225 hp, but in rough water I can stay up there a pretty well with the 4-bladed prop.

seasick said:

You shouldn't fear 'revving' the motor to get on plane but you should'n go WOT normally to get on plane either.
Find out what revs will keep you on plane when on plane by slowly lowering revs until the hull starts to sit down (comes off plane).
Next time from a stop, rev the motor to that rev level plus 300 or so revs and see if the time to plane is acceptable. If so, that should be your starting point for typical conditions. Of course depending on conditions and load, you may want to give it a bit more gas. At some point you will find the revs that works best for your starts and that shouldn't be WOT

The torque curves of 4 strokes are different than 2s and the low end torque (lower revs) is often a lot less than torque at higher revs. The torque curve for 2s is flatter.

Click to expand...

sorry but i totally disagree with this. the rpms you need to stay on plane have a lot to do with hull design, prop selection and trim tabs and nothing whatever to do with the best way to utilize engine torque and minimize lugging in a particular motor to accelerate onto plane whether you have a 2 stroke or 4 stroke. for one thing, the same motor on a different boat will maintain plane at different rpm but its ideal acceleration curve does not change.

you simply want to accelerate onto plane as quickly as possible. there may be some engines where pinning the throttle actually causes it to bog down so you need to apply throttle gradually, but other than that there is nothing wrong with pinning it, and it is the most sure way to get the boat on plane quickly and it is easiest on the engine.

keep in mind that by opening up the throttle you do not actually rev the engine anywhere near wot rpms. next time you throttle up watch the tach and you should see rpms gradually build up. what you do by pinning it is dump the maximum amount of fuel and air at the engine. this causes it to build up rpm as quickly as it can subject to the limitations of the drag created by the prop. this in turn causes it to generate more hp and torque quickly but the engine is limited by the prop so it doesn't spool up to high rpms.

the highest rpms as soon as possible is what you want because that is where the engine generates torque that overcomes the load. especially in a 4 stroke. and by dumping fuel at the problem by pinning the throttle you also minimize the risk of engine damage from heat build up when you do it.

I have 800+ hrs on my F200's and I put who-knows-how-many on my previous outboards. In all of that time, I have never gotten on plane as fast as possible, pinning the throttle or otherwise. My engines check out perfect in all respects and I throttle up gradually, not staying in a plowing position, but not trying to get over the hump as fast as possible either.
Everyone obviously can do what they want, but as far as I'm concerned, the plane as fast as you can theory is wrong.

i strongly agree that everyone can do whatever they want on this one, bill.

magicalbill said:

Everyone obviously can do what they want, but as far as I'm concerned, the plane as fast as you can theory is wrong.

Click to expand...

You could make a sound argument that the way you do it is perfectly fine. But I don't think it's a true/fair statement to say that the "plane as fast as you can theory" is "wrong". Who's to say that if you had instead planed quickly that the engine would not be in the same health as it is now? Saying that would, indeed, be a "theory" -- not fact.

For what it's worth, I think the main thing is to not lug or overload the engine.

DennisG01 said:

magicalbill said:

Everyone obviously can do what they want, but as far as I'm concerned, the plane as fast as you can theory is wrong.

Click to expand...

You could make a sound argument that the way you do it is perfectly fine. But I don't think it's a true/fair statement to say that the "plane as fast as you can theory" is "wrong". Who's to say that if you had instead planed quickly that the engine would not be in the same health as it is now? Saying that would, indeed, be a "theory" -- not fact.

For what it's worth, I think the main thing is to not lug or overload the engine.

Click to expand...

What's great about this form is that you get different opinions from a lot of folks who have tons experience.
I have several fellow boaters who only know two speeds, idle and WOT. It works for them.

One fact of physics that may have been overlooked is that when a vessel is at rest and you want to move it, you are dealing with both drag and inertia. Without going into the formulas, it is fair to say that it takes a lot more force to get a standing mass moving from rest than it does to maintain that speed ( until some point where the drag is equal to the thrust and then the vessel maintains speed.
So at rest it is possible that the needed torque to get the hull moving is equal or close to the torque that the motor can produce (transformed into thrust of course). If the motor is at maximum torque, reving more may not increase torques and could decrease it due to the torque curve or prop slippage. If more thrust is applied than is necessary, the prop will experience more slippage.
Think of a big hull with a pretty small motor. You can rev the heck out of that motor but the hull is only going to accerlate so fast from a stop.

I agree that you can get on plane slowly or more quickly depending on the revs but at some point more revs aren't going to make the on plane time shorter, they will just cause more engine load and/or prop spin.
Each situation, boat and motor config, sea conditions , load etc is different. Usually, you will just learn how to feel what the boat is doing and adjust accordingly

Fair point Mr. "D". I should've said I don't like planning quickly and my procedure has served me well. In reality, I have no real proof planning quickly is bad for your engines. I just don't like to do it, and my engines are fine.

Not unlike everyone on the debate stage the other nite, sometimes I word things wrong.

magicalbill said:

Not unlike everyone on the debate stage the other nite, sometimes I word things wrong.

Click to expand...

Oh my gosh, what a fiasco! Although, I don't why I'm surprised - that seems to be more the 'norm' these days.

Seasick: Nice explanation and I fully agree. Some boats need a lot of throttle, some only need a little. There's some boats that I run that really only need about 1/3 throttle and they pop right up onto plane (as you discussed, hull design has a big impact on this). If I give that particular boat more throttle, it makes little to no difference.

And then, there are some boats where if you give them too much throttle, it will actually be WORSE. Many 'go fast' boats (Cigarrette, Baja, etc) have motors with such huge torque that if you apply too much throttle, they'll spin the props faster than they can grip - a lot like a powerful engine in a car that just spins it's tires. With those boats, you have to feather the throttles very carefully.

The most important thing is to spend as little time "in the hole" as possible - whatever method works for you and your boat... is the best!

But, I will say that, I never just 'jam' the throttle forward, regardless of the boat/engine combo. Even for a boat that needs a lot of throttle, I still move the stick nice and smooth. Going from very little pressure on the drivetrain (gears) to full pressure in a instant... I can't see how that would be good.

DennisG01 said:

magicalbill said:

But, I will say that, I never just 'jam' the throttle forward, regardless of the boat/engine combo. Even for a boat that needs a lot of throttle, I still move the stick nice and smooth. Going from very little pressure on the drivetrain (gears) to full pressure in a instant... I can't see how that would be good.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

at the risk of debating how many angels dance on the head of a pin, there is an answer to this. before i offer it, i will agree that so long as you get up on plane as fast as your boat can do it i don't really think it matters too much how you choose to work the throttle. there are some theoretical benefits to pinning the throttle but whether they can be measured i don't know.

but on the theoretical side, i think pinning the throttle is technically safer because you are dumping the maximum fuel into the cylinders which avoids any lean condition and helps keep things cool. that's what a fuel injected car does over about 3500 rpm (open loop) or if your car goes into "limp" mode because of an ecu input problem such as a bad o2 sensor. the ecu simply orders the injectors to send the maximum amount of fuel possible to protect your engine. also, as to your thoughts about initial "pressure on the gears" i think your assumption that going to full throttle creates an additional initial load that causes more wear than more gradually building up speed is mistaken. it is the gradual acceleration under heavy load building up heat which is the problem. the engine and gearcase is physically designed to take the initial load and that load is much less than a car because of the minimal traction of a prop. also, the difference in initial load on the gearcase between a feathered throttle and a pinned throttle is fairly minimal. it's not the same as dropping into gear at 3000 rpm in a street rod. you start accelerating in gear from idle in a boat no matter where you push the throttle.

anyway, it's an interesting debate. i hope nobody took offence. i also hope you guys do well in your next election cycle (i am a canadian but watching with interest).

No offense taken; We're all friends here and, as Seasick says, this is why this site is so valuable. I didn't know a seemingly simple topic of planing could be broken down and analyzed to this level. I certainly didn't realize all these different factors of heat buildup, gearcase load, etc. that play into it. I always thought that if you push the throttle all the way down to plane, you are prematurely wearing down your engine when you add up how many times you plane the boat off during your ownership.

The elections? I'll leave that door shut; I'm sure to the appreciation of Seafarer 228G (Moderator.) I used the debate reference only for a weak attempt at a laugh.

I wonder if Trapper realized he would start this full scale discussion?