Re: Boat not quite getting on plane
A 25 should be able to plane out with close to 1500 lbs assuming you have everything setup right. I doubt that you have that much weight, so a 25 should work although it won't blow fins off the fish. It might be worth trying a whale tail, with a 12 or 13. Try to lighten up as much as you can and balance the load. Make sure you have some weight in front which will make the plane a bit less of a chore. If this still does not work, you are not going to like the answer.<br /><br />Wanted to make sure this was a bigfoot before sharing a similar situation. My friend has an older Bluefin 16 footer with the same motor. He did some mods like added some decking and a livewell. Boat is not that wide, but it is fairly heavy for a 16 footer. The performance numbers are almost identical to what you reported. 18 MPH with 1 person, and 14 with 2 people. Boat planes, but it just won't go fast. He also has a 10 pitch prop. He did try a 11 and 12, but they did not help at all. <br /><br />I don't know this for a fact, but I wonder if the bigfoot is just a bad fit for a regular vhull boat. Higher gear ratio means you need more RPMS to get the same speed as a typical motor at 2:08 gear ratio or jump up on the prop pitch to achieve the same speed. A standard 25 would likely run 11 or 12 pitch, so you would need to jump up 2 to get the same speed. The question then is will it plane with a 13 or 14? My guess is maybe with the 13, but probably not with the 14. The motor is billed as high thrust and when you think about it, a pontoon is well suited for this type of motor. 18 MPH on a pontoon with a 25 would make most people happy.<br /><br />It would be helpfull to know if anybody else gets more speed from the bigfoot 25. One dealer I talked to out of Wisconson says they recommend the bigfoot for 16 footers because they don't cavitate, and can push a boat meant for a bigger motor at a reasonable speed. They apparently have the 25 limit on some lakes as well. I don't really agree with this because I fish restricted lakes and see a variety of 25s pushing 14 and 16 foot boats with various configurations and load factors. They all move well beyond 18 MPH. The last few times out I was running a 14 foot alumicraft with a 2004 15 Johnson. This would do 19 MPH and jump on plane real quick. I was not able to keep up with the 25s on the lake, but was close to some of them with 3 people.<br /><br />My new boat is 15' weighs 615 lbs and will do 29 mph in good conditions with a 12 pitch and a honda 25. It is a little slow on the hole shot, but easily gets max rpm range. I don't have numbers for 2 and 3 people yet, but I believe it will knock me down to around 22 mph with 3 people.<br /><br />Good luck on solving this. Hopefully you don't have to loose the cooler to where you are going.
