2006 Sundancer 260

Dave S said:
...There is also a trick to comming up on plane and keeping your boat level and that is start with your drive fully down and as you begin accelerating and feel the boat beginning to lean a bit then start trimming the outdrive slowly as she gradually gains speed and keep on trimming it to keep it level. Once on plane you then make the final side to side balancing by adjusting one tab to level her out.

My advice is give it some time and I think you will come to enjoy the boat. I enjoy mine immensely now but like you I had all kinds of doubt when I first bought it.
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I forgot to comment on that. It is best to try to not have the drive all the way down when you get on plane. When you start off, the drive should be down to help minimize bow rise. If you leave it down, when the boat gets on plane, the engine will continue pushing the bow down. This causes the bow to get too low and makes the boat very sensitive to steering input. Combine the sensitive steering with the listing that is also caused by the drive being down too far, and you get the behavior that is causing your problems.

Ease into the throttle, and use short taps on the up drive trim as you accelerate. This way, the drive will not be all the way down when you do get up on plane. You'll also learn to time your up trim inputs as you accelerate so that the listing as you come up on plane will be minimized as well.

What really suprises me is how well this boat rides at WOT. She settles down in the water and feels rock solid and stable. Too bad I can't (shouldn't, won't, etc..) ride around at 40+MPH all the time.

Michael
 
dpvandy01 said:
A note on Drive Trim: too much in the wrong conditions can cause excessive "porpoising" or bow bounce.
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My experience with my 260DA is that it takes a lot of trim to get the best speed and I never have experienced porpoising. Again, I will comment that the 2005 thru 2008 hulls are built different than the previous version 260DA and react differently as well. The 2004 and prior hulls have 19 degree deadrise whereas the 2005 and up have 21 degree deadrise.
 
Dave S said:
My experience with my 260DA is that it takes a lot of trim to get the best speed and I never have experienced porpoising. Again, I will comment that the 2005 thru 2008 hulls are built different than the previous version 260DA and react differently as well. The 2004 and prior hulls have 19 degree deadrise whereas the 2005 and up have 21 degree deadrise.
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Point well taken, I was actually commenting from experience with my 250DA
 
Ya'll got me curious how my boat would feel with the celery stick in the forward position, so I went to the marina last night and moved it. Took all of 20 minutes. I'll be making a few test runs later today. I sometimes think that I a little more down trim would be nice, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. Fortunately, if I don't like the results I can have the boat put right back on the wash rack so I can undo it. I'll be back in the water in 30 minutes. High & dry storage definately has and advantage when it comes to maintenance.

Have a great day,
Michael
 
You are not alone sundancer260, I went from a 200 SEL to my 260DA. When I first started driving it felt very strange and I didn't think I would get over the listing while underway, let alone backing it into the slip. :huh: I have put about 45 hours on the boat and finally becoming comfortable with the way she handles compared to my previous bowrider.(two different worlds)

Becoming familiar with what the boat likes as far as trim and tab use, it is becoming easier and more comfortable = less stress. I usually have the trim down and the tabs up, about 80% throttle, let her come up on plane nice and easy, trim it out, then use the tabs if needed. Then get your rpms where you want them and you may have to make a slight adjustment.

Don't give up just yet, there are alot of us(myself included) that are going through the same thing.:thumbsup:
 
I got my 260 this past February. I too had a few surprises in learning how to get an even ride. This is my first boat, so I am learning.

First mistake, letting people walk around. I now try to even out the weight and ask that they get comfy before I open it up. That works a lot. I need to get better at asking them to walk in the center if they have to move. Same instructions for the kids down below, "sit still".

Second mistake, over-adjusting the trim tabs. I would hit them too long (over .5 seconds) and I'd be chasing the proper angle for too long. Now I just adjust the high side down a bit. Seems to work.

The previous owner had told me always keep the engine at the full down position. Every now and then I still struggle with the balance, so after reading this I may play with the engine angle tomrrow when I am out, once on plane.

Like the others, the motion later still exists for me, and I don't mnd it. The more I boat, the less longer it lingers. The 260 is a great boat, balancing fuel efficiency, room, and speed. Don't give up too fast, hang in there. At 5 months now, we love it. At slow speeds it does squirm a bit, but I figure that's natural with a single engine boat. When I am cruising at 7 - 9 knots, I put the trim tabs almost all the way down, and never have a problem, and don't notice any lack of fuel efficiency from it.

Keep playing with it, and have fun.
 
Dougbb said:
The previous owner had told me always keep the engine at the full down position. Every now and then I still struggle with the balance, so after reading this I may play with the engine angle tomrrow when I am out, once on plane.
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If you don't trim your motor your speed is held way down and your fuel mileage suffers as well. Our 260's will take a lot of trim and they handle much better when trimmed out as well.

Let us know what you think.

Dave
 
All I can say is. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: :smt038:smt038:smt038:grin::grin::grin:

Wow! Moving that celery stick makes a WORLD of difference in the way the boat feels. Now, I gotta learn to drive her all over....

Michael
 
on both trim cylinders are ceramic wedges that look like celery sticks. On the rear of the cyl, move the celery stick to the front of the mounting bolt and the drive will trim down farther. SB
 
BTW, auto tabs on the 260 are worthless. They were on my 06 when I bought it and did not help. Actually made things worse. I have heard they are great on wider boats but the 260 shifts too quickly for the auto brains to keep up with. SB
 
This is our first season with the 260 and we love it. Everyone is right it takes some practice to feel the boat out. Tips on this forum really helped me out. Easy on the buttons is the key. Beautiful day out on the CT river yesterday...
 
Hello guys.

I just got back from my 1st full weekend of cruising around with the celery stick adjustment that Dave first mentioned in post 16 of this thread. All I can say is what the heck was SR thinking shipping these boats with the celery stick in the rear position? The difference is night and day.

I was pretty happy with my boat after finally getting used to trimming her out properly. As I stated earlier, when Dave mentioned the adjustment, curiosity got the best of me. I changed it with every intention of putting it back where it was after a few test runs. Uh huh... That celery stick (Merc calls it the "trim-in limit insert") is staying put right where it is.

Things that (pleasantly) suprised me: The bow no longer wanders from side to side forcing me to make constant steering adjustments at idle speeds. Now it steers straight where I put it. The amount of bow rise when accelerating went way down. Now, the bow rises just a little as the boat starts planing. It used to feel like the bow would rise until I hit planing speed and then "fall down" into proper planing attitude. Larger waves in front, and from the side, no longer feel as though they might tip me over off of plane. Over time, I learned to use light steering input to overcome this, but now I just steer where I want to go instead. The boat slices through waves and wakes much better than it did before, nice and steady. I am just in absolute awe over the differences. I ran over 25MPH with the drive all the way down, and I didn't notice any unusual steering or handling issues. The boat was obviously out of trim at that point, so I find it hard to believe that I would ever end up in that running configuration under normal circumstances. It might be the extra weight of the 496 all the way in the back that keeps it from getting touchy with full down trim at speed, but that is just a guess.

The boat still leans to port when I get on plane, but a few taps on the starboard trim button evens her out nicely. No "fiddling" necessary. It was set it and forget it all weekend. Once trimmed, I had nice, even, positive steering in both directions.

Sundancer260, take your boat to the dealer and ask them specifically to move the sterndrive trim-in limit insert from the back of the pin to the front of the pin. Tell them that you are just not happy with the way the boat is riding, and you have heard directly from at least 2 people with the new style 260s that it will make an improvement. Ask them to take a test ride with you in rougher conditions if they do not believe you (hopefully, you can get them to find someone who is not too familiar with the 260s, and have them drive). Have them make the change and then test drive it again.

What a great weekend of boating. Thanks to Dave for being the trail blazer on this little gem of an adjustment. Driving the boat is a lot less work all of a sudden.

Michael
 
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mmmmm. I'll have to take a look, but I'm happy with my tabs(but I have the older 260).
 
Dave's tip about the engine angle trim worked like a charm today. I cranked it up to 4,000 rpm's and left the trim tabs all the way up. As it began to naturally list to the port side, I simply clicked the engine trim up a few seconds and it evened out perfectly. From there, anytime I got a little play, I lightly adjusted the trim tabs.

But, just as I got it perfect, running about 24 kph @ 3700 rpms, my son decided to get up and move to the other side! When I grabbed him by the neck and threw him back to the other side, he got the point. Might be easier to use the trim tabs, he weighs about 220 lbs! :smt001
 
It really makes me kind of mad that many dealers don't take the time to explain to customers some of the quirks that the 2005-2008 260DA's have if you don't do some of the basics with regard to trimming the outdrive and using the tabs. It took me a lot of trial and error before I figured it out on my own. Then the celery stick adjustment was the final thing which made a world of difference in terms of getting on plane. While I was learning all this I just couldn't understand why my boat was so squirrely.

I would think our 260's will no longer be made come 2009 and will be replaced by the 270DA. The deadrise has been changed back to 19 degrees so it will probably handle differently as well. I think that was intentonal because of what they experienced with the 21 degrees of deadrise that we have. I know one thing.............when that boat hits the showrooms I am going to get a demo as I will be very curious to see the differences between the two hulls.
 
Great description, Dave. Squirrely describes it. There is a place near us where 2 rivers come into the upper Chesapeake Bay. This is a busy section of water where you have traffic going in 4 or 5 directions converging in an area about 3/4 of a square mile. On the weekends, there are wakes crashing into each other all over the place making for some very confused seas. On several occassions, I have been coming out of one of the rivers and had some waves hitting me from all directions at the same time while accelerating onto plane. This is where I noticed the "squirrely" behavior the most. That brief period of time while you are accelerating is where the 260 seems most vulnerable. Get hit with a wave of proper size coming from the wrong direction at the right time and you end up with one heck of a wild ride.

This was one of the things that I tested this weekend, and is where I noticed one of the biggest improvements. With the (very much) reduced bow rise after moving the stick, there isn't any time spent accelerating with the bow high in the air and the waves have much less impact when they hit. It allows me to smoothly accelerate onto plane without feeling like a cork on the water.

It also made a big difference in how the engine sounds. You can easily hear the change, and it is very clear that the engine is not working nearly as hard as it had to in the past.

I'm beginning to wonder if it is the deadrise, or the angle of the transom causing the issue. SR installs the drives as Merc specifies, with the stick to the rear. Just looking around the yard at other boats with BIIIs, it was pretty easy to see that my drive in full down position had less down angle (using the keel line as a reference) than almost everyone else. After moving the stick, my drive looks as "tucked under" as everyone else's does now. The truly odd thing is that Merc's description of what they are trying to prevent by putting the stick in the rear position is exactly what we see with it in that position. Going against the Merc recommendation does exactly the opposite of what they say it will do.

I would think that both SR and their dealers know about this by now and they should be teaching everyone that buys one how to drive it. There should even be a section in the owner's manual describing the behavior and how to trim the boat. I'd be more upset with them if I wasn't convinced that this is why the previous 2 owners sold the boat. Heck, the first owner repowered to a 496HO from a 350 probably in an attempt to reduce time to plane. I doubt that either one of them would have sold it had they tried this adjustment first. I can truly say that driving the boat is much more enjoyable and relaxing than it used to be. It feels like I bought a new boat last week. :smt001

Happy boating!
Michael
 
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