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Jack plate


castafly

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This has been discussed a number of times over the years and USUALLY the consensus is that a plate works great on the 21, good on the 18.5 as well, but not on the 17. Many previous 17 owners as well as Skip suggested that I not put a plate on my 17 and they were right.

The cons:

You can only raise the plate up about an inch or so before the prop loses bite and the boat starts to porpoise badly. Yes you can slam the trim tabs all the way down and that helps but you absolutely cannot raise the plate up all the way for a hole shot, cruising speed or wide open. I also lost a couple of HP at the top end.

The pros:

If you don't feel like deploying your trolling motor, it's nice to be able to raise the plate all the way up to just slowly idle around looking for bait or fish in shallow water or getting up close to the beach. Also good for trailering since you can just put plate all the way up and leave it there giving plenty of road clearance.

I know some may disagree with the performance points but the 17 truly performs better without a plate.

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I purchased a used CMC jackplate that I plan on "trying" out as I have fears that it will come w more cons then pros but will keep u guys posted as to the impact. will try to get some real world draft figures and changes.

topshelf, got any pics that you can post?

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Installed one on my old MA 17 with nothing but improvements. I'll never own another boat without one!

But Robert, you had a Yami 130 with your setup which I think allowed the JP to work better than with my F100. You had more power, light 2 stroke. Not sure why (hull design on the 17, motor choice, etc.) but you simply cannot raise the plate more than 3" without losing bite and cavitating badly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

tach wasn't working i ran the boat. i think i unplugged something in the console when i was doing some wiring so gotta get rpm changes when i can. Speed w current 58ish and against 55 giving avg of 56.5 which would be an increase in rpm and speed by around 2-3mph hence why i need to get it working to confirm but it ran great!

1459216043-rsz_1img_7566.jpg.85742dfd3d5

1459216835-rsz_2img_7599.jpg.1b23032f737

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