Bad List Problems

[mikescarb]

Hello,
I just bought my 1st Searay and its handling is horrible. I bought a Searay because of all the good things I heard about how it handles, but was very disappointed my 1st time out. This is a 230 Weekender 1988 model, IO V-8. I have to be very careful about positioning weight or the boat will lean to one side so much that I have to slow to 10mph to keep it upright. I have never had this kind of a problem in any of my boats and wonder what might be wrong with this one.

No water in the bilge. I have a kicker motor on one side, Yamaha 9.9. I didn't have much weight in the boat, just life jackets and some fishing gear. The boat does have quite a bit of storage on the bottom. Should I try to fill it up to weigh down the center bottom of the boat? I'm not dumb and did look around for obvious problems. My son in law who weighs about 200 lbs could move from one side of the boat to the other and the boat would lean badly on whichever side he was on.

I used to have a Glassply and I never experienced this problem, even with a loaded boat.

Any helpful ideas would be appreciated.
Mike

 

[Half Fast]

I've got a little bit more boat than you but I find mine is very sensitive to load distribution as well. If one of my passengers so much as crosses their legs I feel like I'm on the trim tabs. The tabs keep it very manigable, but my boat clearly could not operate without them, whereas in many other boats I've operated the tabs were more of an extra bit of help/fine tune than anything else. Between my family and myself I've operated dozens of sizes and brands over the years and none have been close to this sensitive in terms of changes in weight distribution while running. While there are quite a few positives about searay - I don't think this is one of them.

 

[CliffA]

when i first got my 215EC i also noticed the sensitivity to weight loading and shifting...i am thinking one reason is the deep 'V' shape hull...this is my first boat with trim tabs so i did not know how to use them at first....now with just a quick push or two of the tab controller i can correct for just about any type of weight distribution...i still have issues if someone decides to move around the boat while underway and on plane, but i either correct for the shifting weight with the tabs or tell the passenger to sit their big a** back down while the boat is moving...i did notice a considerable improvement in the sensitivity to weight shifting when i installed a Stingray hydrofoil (no affiliation) on my sterndrive...the hydrofoil helps with getting the boat on plane faster and helps to stabilize the boat once on plane...the combination of the trim tabs and hydrofoil work quite nicely for my boat....