TRIM A BOAT

Trimming your vessel correctly is vital for comfort, economy, seakeeping and ultimately safety. Good hull design usually requires very little trim from the helm to keep the ride comfortable. However, having the ability to affect the trim both fore and aft as well as side to side is great for altering the attitude of your boat to the sea. In a perfect world as you accelerate your well designed, perfectly balanced boat to its planing speed, the shape of the hull will naturally lift it onto the plane, allowing it to skim over the top of the water with the boat's weight supported evenly on the surface.

- Words: Jon Mendez Photos: Richard Langdon

However, a boat's weight doesn't always remain constant; adding passengers, fuel, supplies and kit all change that perfect balance. Additionally, sea conditions also affect how your boat rides; calm seas being ideal. Anything from a Force 4 upwards (or less in a small boat) will change the comfort and sea keeping of that perfect balance.

The same holds true for direction of travel; going upwind means you are facing steeper wave faces, going downwind risks dropping the bow into deeper troughs, and beam seas can cause the boat to list away from the waves or lean into the wind due to the counter steer you apply to stop being blown off course.

Short of shifting weight around, there are two main ways of trying to recreate that perfect trim scenario. Outboard and outdrive craft have engine trim buttons, usually on one side of the throttle handle, that allow you to alter the angle of the drive/thrust. This allows you to raise (trim up) or lower the bow (trim down) to try and keep it at its most efficient. However, this does not allow much lateral trim even with twin engine installations.