MCskiFreak

The idea behind this strut is not to introduce any amount of air to "soften" the wake, but to provide a cleaner less turbulent flow of water to the propeller, the end goal is the same as Eric's idea but without the chance for catastrophic reaction to the modification.

It is not a difficult process to calc. the stresses that are going to be induced so if the engineers at MC and the supplier are competent they will have done the calculation to ensure the product can handle normal working loads.

From what I have heard there is almost no reduction in the top speed of the boats with these struts. The whole idea is to soften the wakes that bulb is designed to be directly in front of the water flow going to the prop at the boats optimum trim angle. The 300 uses that same strut design and it has actually increased the boats efficiency due to the reduction in air bubbles.

That is my feeling exactly! Unfortunately the mentatlity at the big three seems to be if you can afford a $50K + boat you can afford the gas

Shane H. The reason that I do not see the 200's hull design as the way forward is because of its inefficiencies, the design was reactive, something they tried worked, once they found a good slalom wake they stopped. This is the reason I see CFD modeling being so crucial, it allows the user to run many different iterations of a hull designs to find the one that offers the customer the best performance, both from the sport side as well as from an efficiency standpoint. Something that has bothered me for a long time is the shear weight of the hulls from all major manufacturers. There is simply no reason for 20' tournament slalom boat to weigh in at over 3,000lbs. It is time for manufactures to start using closed molding technology!

Real innovation can be made through the use of CFD modeling techniques to both better understand what one of these hulls designs will do as well as improving the efficiency of the hull designs. Just look as the CC 200's hull, from a Naval Architects point of view the thing is atrocious! The amount of power being wasted to move that thing through the water is crazy, while I admit it is an amazing slalom boat, it is not the way forward.

I still stand by the fact that introducing air in these areas is a bad idea! There is also a problem with the idea of treating a fully submerged propeller like a surface piercing prop. The collapse of the bubbles generates very high local forces and can damage the blade causing it to erode. The only way this can be countered is if a condition can be reached where the propeller is is super cavitating, ie when the cavitation sheet covers the entire prop from tip to root. Yes it is true that MasterCraft as well as the other brands have had some very bad hull designs in the past this is largely due to the fact that most of the engineering departments lack degreed engineers let alone ones with naval architecture/hydrodynamic backgrounds. As it stands MasterCraft is the only one im aware of that employs Naval Architects.

All, This is an absolutely crazy mod to make to your boat! As a Naval Architecture student/avid water skier I can categorically tell you to NOT make this modification to your own boat! This guy is introducing air in an area that you never want to, between the prop and rudder, there is a very valid safety concern with doing this. Not only is he aerating the prop (the slip and vibration is caused by this) which would reduce hole shot performance, and eventually damage the prop; he also risks rudder stall which on a tight lake could prove disastrous! The engineers and Naval Architect at MasterCraft are not stupid people, and without a doubt already have a much better solution figured out