Bunk trailer needed with lifting strakes?

[kaydano]

I very highly doubt it affects performance in any way, despite the numbers posted here. Only Bennington engineering knows for sure. My ESP has open strakes and performs superbly in every way - handling, acceleration, and top end.

I thought the ESP hull didn't t have any strakes? I thought it had a smooth elliptical center tube and the outer tubes had foils (fins, not strakes) on just the inside of the outer tubes...

Even if ESP has full sized strakes on the center elliptical tube (which I didn't think it had so it could pivot easier), what I've been talking about here is the Express hull where you can get 6 full sized strakes added. That's a lot of lineal feet of strakes. Since the Express is limited to 150 HP, sealing the strakes seems to me to be a very low cost option to add a little more performance since you can't add any more HP to the hull. The two-tube hull and twin ellipticals can have 4 strakes added (only two tubes), so any advantage to sealing them is knocked back by 1/3rd.

My 4 inner strakes drain faster than the two outer strakes since the ends are open. My outer strakes (which are also quite a bit longer than the inside strakes) will bubble for about 5 minutes after submerging as they fill up with water. They are closed on the end except for a 1.5 or 2 inch hole in the plate. Likewise, I assume the two outer strakes would take longer to drain.

I recall the incremental cost of sealing my strakes was just under $200. That was back in 2011, and after applying the same discount off MSRP that I got on the rest of the boat. I could be wrong. I thought it was a very small amount, but I didn't think there was any advantage to it at the time.

When you're talking ~$11k for 150 HP motor, and the limit of the hull being capped at 150, sealing the strakes for another couple hundred bucks is icing on the cake and should be a no-brainer in terms of bang for the buck, but it's also not a big deal if you don't get them sealed. We're talking small incremental benefits here. But at a very small cost too, so the $/performance ratio shouldn't be ignored.

But, for Dan S, you probably got 98-99% of the benefit just by purchasing the strakes (unsealed). Sealing them may have only brought you another percent or two of benefit, so don't worry about it. But, given the cost, if I could do it over, I'd seal them for all the reasons people have listed here.

 

[bcpnick]

I thought the ESP hull didn't t have any strakes?  I thought it had a smooth elliptical center tube and the outer tubes had foils (fins, not strakes) on just the inside of the outer tubes...

My ESP has two strakes and two performance foils. The strakes are on the center tube.