I have a problem I've never encountered before. I have a 21 ft ranger with a 250 Yamaha . Great boat. Always run great. It's just recently has had a problem that I don't quite understand.

When I am traveling at high speed, I cannot increase the trim at all without losing control of the boat. If I increase the trim to say 1/2, the slightest turn on the wheel will result in a dramatic turn in the boat to the point that I am walking sideways and feel the g force about to flip the boat. If I keep trim low, no problem. But this is new. I have been able to operate the boat at full trim at 60+ mph with no problem other than the expected amount of sensitivity. What I am currently experiencing is above and beyond.

I have a jack plate it has never been adjusted.

There was a small leak in the hydraulic line at the steering wheel I had repaired this week. Have not driven the boat since this repair but it does not seem connected to the problem. Maybe it is?


Anyone have any insight as to what's going on with my boat?

I wish that I knew brother, I hope you get it figured out and get that ranger up and running again.
Good luck

May have been oversteer due to the hose losing pressure. That is all i got

All I can think of is maybe the steering system needs to be re-bled. Sounds like you have a bunch of air in the lines and when you get the nose out of the water the torque takes over.

take your transom saver off an see if you can move the motor side to side if so your seals on the hydraulic steering ram has air in this will cause the motor to make a quick move when the torque of the motor takes over we have been changing a lot of these seals lately.

Sounds like air in the lines...

This is all good advice. Thanks fellas I will report back when I find out for sure. Maybe the repaired line was the problem.

check the little trim keel over your prop..sometimes those break off and that causes
an issue with steering when you are trimmed up.

If you're going as fast as you used to go, but thinking you need more trim, it could be the sending unit for the trim guage. Those things can get off adjustment and make you think you're running with no trim while you're actually trimmed high.

If you're not going as fast as you used to go, and are needing more trim and have the steering problems, then I would imagine it's something related with your steering like mentioned above, or you could have some damage on your lower unit somewhere or prop.

I'm not familiar with hydraulic steering mainly because all my boats were older and were made back when anti- feedback steering was king, but I've been an industrial mechanic for almost 33 years and work on a lot of hydraulic equipment. If these systems are full on hydraulic and not hydraulic assist like power steering on a car or truck any leakage is really going to create havoc in this system. Think of it in this way, if you had regular anti-feedback steering and one of the steering shafts got a crack or a break in it how would the boat react?. Even with hydraulic assist steering you are still going to feel like there is something out of the ordinary going on because the side with the leak is not going to rebound like it should. My two cents.