70 mph in a Gambler Bass boat....

[mikemicropterus]

http://contour.com/stories/70-mph-in-gambler-bass-boat

[bostonwhaler]

I have never watched a motor from that angle, your cavitation plate was almost an inch out of the water. I always thought they stayed submerged. I would be worried about not having enough cooling and burning her out. ( but again I am no marine mechanic)

[cgates]

I have never watched a motor from that angle, your cavitation plate was almost an inch out of the water. I always thought they stayed submerged. I would be worried about not having enough cooling and burning her out. ( but again I am no marine mechanic)

That's OK because he is

[Bass Addict]

I want one !!

[NMG]

The best performance is often only achieved IF the anti cavitation plate is out of the water. If it's submerged, it's causing lots of drag and robbing performance. That said, you probably also need a good stainless prop to run the engine that high so that it still has enough grip and doesn't blow out. Obviously allot of this is boat specific, but it's really not uncommon for that plate to clear the water if you are tuning your rig for optimal performance.

[Flipper]

Fascinating video. Thanks for posting. The coming off plane part is cool, eh?

Does seeing from this angle help you in figuring out or trouble shooting the set up at all?

[FishToLive]

Nice video Mike.

Most of the pictures I have seen of Gamblers in the water seem to have to front of the boat kinda high.
Like this one:


Do you have pictures of the boat in the water? Maybe one with nobody on the boat and one with on or 2 fisherman in the front?

I can't find the Gambler website either?????

I think they are nice boats I like different...

[bostonwhaler]

K. Anyone wanna climb to the back of my skeeter to see if we can replicate this. I'm to cheap to buy a water proof camera. Lol.

[Jimmy_1]

I have yet to get behind the wheel......

Someday Mike....someday....

[mikemicropterus]

OK just to correct a few things.....it's an anti-ventilation plate...most everyone gets that wrong........
Ventilation can lead to cavitation but you don't have to have ventilation to have cavitation....
Cavitation is the collapsing of air bubbles along a surface...it gets so hot it burns the area or in the case of a gear case erodes it as is happening to mine...in certain areas......most are in line with something...speedo pick-up....water pick-ups.....it can happen at any speed but mostly when the boat is going over 40 mph or over trimming can do it also and you would see that on the edges of the prop.....cavitation burn......
Blow-out is something a gear case does and this usually happens only at speeds over 80 mph......what happens is the gear case profile can't handle the speed of the water and it causes the prop to ventilate and when this happens it's like spinning your wheels...you loose grip...in a boat going over 70 mph if you chop the throttle much the same as gear case blow-out the boat has a tendency to turn left quite quickly.....at over 80 it happens quicker....most gear cases can't handle 80 mph and only the ones that are designed to work at that speed should be used...merc and brp have a line of different gear cases depending on application......the other companies don't.....I'd never want to take a Honda gear case over 70 mph not dumping on Honda but they don't design nor do the build performance into their gear cases....
OK every boat out there should be rigged with the ANTI-VETILATION plate even or up to an inch above the bottom of the boat. Even with an aluminum prop....
most boats won't get much from a SS prop unless they add a jack-plate...
To get the most out of your boat you need to get it out of the water because most all boat these days have a PLANING hull....so the more gear case you drag the more drag you have and the angle the boat rides at maybe pushing he boat through the water rather than planning the boat....the boat when trimmed should run parallel with the surface of the water.....less drag.......
Right now I am an inch too low still......I have lots of water pressure and no steering torque so I can go up in height....I changed the jack-plate and lost an inch and half due to different design...so I have to space it out another 2 inches to get another inch in engine height which enables me to run a prop with more cupping.......that cupping translate into grip and with good grip you can trim and use higher engine heigths....as long as you have water pressure and no steering torque....

Most boats I see are not set up properly and most bass boats aren't set up at all....

If you look closely at about a minute and half you can actually see the prop turning like a screw.....really cool to see......next one I will try to run the camera under the boat..... the camera mount can take 250 mph on an airplane wing so I'm hoping it can take some water pressure.....

to see more boats here's a link.... https://www.facebook.com/groups/192655962440/

seeing the boat run from this angle tells me the motor is still too low and but also I have no rooster tail which means all the thrust is linear and not into the ski.....a rooster tail indicates an over trimmed motor or a prop that has lost some grip so over trimming is necessary to get speed....

my other prop with more cupping runs 200 rpm lower and 3 mph faster.....I run a 26" blue printed Raker 3 blade prop.....3 blade runs faster than a 4 blade but the ride is looser....

I did this so everyone can see that if you ventilation plate is too low your boat will not run properly and efficiently .....and will handle poorly.....a proper set-up can save fuel....

the one draw back to the way the Gambler sits in the water is the low stern angle.....the boats were originally California drag boats.....16 foot boat with a 19 foot cap on it.....they ran fast but handled rough water poorly.......I am limited a times to how shallow I can get...but I'm not much of a shallow angler so it doesn't bother me....I more oriented to deep fishing and leave the shallow stuff to the others.....if both anglers fish out of the bow then there is not a problem.....the new designed Gambler/Sterling has eliminated this idiosyncrasy....mine is a 2004 I bought it fully loaded....Kevlar hull and trim tabs....
It's a friggin awesome boat and the last of it's kind...they no longer make the Outlaw and they destroyed the molds after 2004 so I have one of the last Outlaws....they only made 50 bass boats that year.......
Fastest I have had it with 2 people is 74.7 mph in the spring...once I get to 80mph I will be happy with the speed....

It's too bad they wanted to change the name because of branding reasons but Sterling Bass Boats is what Gambler has evolved into.....
they also make flats boats....http://www.americanmarinesports.com/ams_Gambler.html

[lape0019]

I gotta say Mike,

That was a pretty good read. I never though that much went into setting up a boat properly. The boat I have now is pretty much set up the only way it can be as I only have the engine mount I can play with and I am not putting a jackplate on the back of an aluminum mod v with a 75 on it.

When I get the new boat in a few years, this info has made it clear I will need to find someone who knows what they are doing to get the most out of my rig.

Thanks for such an informative post and video!

Adam

[bostonwhaler]

Wow. That's allot of info. I wonder why boats don't cone with adjustable mounting brackets on the transom. I am sure my "Ventalation plate" is under the water by 6 inches or so.

[NMG]

Mine sits roughly even with the bottom of the hull and while running, It's probably 2-3 inches beneath the surface. That's in the 2nd of 4 holes. I could raise it as high as it would go and I still think it would be below the surface.

That said, it's only a 70HP tiller on a 16 footer so it's not a performance boat. It handles fine once on plane and trimmed out and I have no steering torque. It's good for 30-32 MPH depending on load with a 13 pitch prop. With a 14 I could probably get another 1-2 I bet. All round good performance, but I might try raising it next year just for kicks and to play around.