Re: quicker planing
OK...for the benefit of others, I'll continue my saga with the StingRay hydrofoil. Decided to brave the cold and did some experimenting with foil on & off during deep-water slalom starts behind my wheezy 3.0 stern drive. Frankly, I felt it was a touch easier for me to get out of the water WITHOUT the foil. And a few more zero to 30 runs and top speed runs mixed in, I've come to the determination that the StingRay Hydrofoil did NOT help my sterndrive and I would NOT recommend it to others with a similar setup. However, with my past experience with StingRays on low powered outboard boats, I can say that I found they DO help those types of boats. But I will still not recommend their particular product to ANYONE any longer due to one reason...poor customer service.<br /><br />Their website offers a "No hassle money back guarantee" if not satisfied for ANY reason. So after determining I was finally not satisfied, I called the manufacturer and said I wanted them to make good on their money back guarantee. They said return it to the dealer...mail order company refused to take it back as product is now opened and used. I told MFR this issue, they said please talk to our tech department about your installation. I did, we talked, they told me to shim it up higher with stainless fender washers to get it out of the water a little more, I did, it didn't help. I called and said AGAIN I wanted to make good on their "NO HASSLE money back guarantee" (which by now had already become a hassle.) Finally, after 3 more phone calls & emails, someone there flat out told me that their corporate office makes it very difficult for those products to be sent directly to the factory for refunds, but they'd research and get back with me. Suddenly the return phone calls and emails from them came to a dead halt. So now I'm DONE.<br /><br />NO HASSLE? HA!<br /><br />So this company has lost my business forever, and I'm posting my disappointing experience on the WWW for all to see. And the StingRay? It's permanantly off the boat and on Ebay right now....hopefully someone with an outboard can use it better than I could with my sterndrive and can offset some of my small financial loss for me.<br /><br />In conclusion, do I think hydrofoils are bad? No. Not for an outboard that needs help planing. But it didn't work as advertised on my stern-drive, that's for sure. And if you're considering trying a foil, don't buy a StingRay...buy a competitors product instead...one that stands behind their written guarantees. <br /><br />So there ya go...trim tabs, here I come! Starting to research my options there to see how they'll work for me. Will update if/when that project comes to fruition. In the meantime, I'm goin' boating! Time to stop working on this thing and just enjoy it for the summer....<br /><br />See ya!
<br /><br />After reading all your past posts of hydrofoil bashing, I was kind of wondering if you'd show up when this topic came up again.<br /><br />I don't know all the specific rules on this site, but isn't there some rule against advertising on these forums? Maybe not.<br /><br />Regardless, I'm doing nothing more than expermienting. It's cheaper and easier to experiment with a foil than with your trim tabs, so I'm doing that first. (No need to reply with your long term gas wasting analysis calculations here...we've all read them already) Enough people have claimed some success with foils that I feel it's worth a shot. After I've experimented, I'll report my findings for the benefit of others and maybe try some trim tabs instead if I don't like the results. <br /><br />I'm sure your product works great, not trying to dispute that at all, just sharing my thought process. Happy day!<br /><br /><br />EDIT: After re-reading my post, I sound like kind of a jerk, don't I? My sincere apologies. Nautijohn please understand that I do respect and understand your opinion and I apologize if I came across a little rough. I'm glad there are so many different people out here sharing their opinions and expertise.
