FX 21 Porpoising?

I purchased a 2018 FX 21 a few months back and I really love the boat. I’ve had a few minor problems that the dealer took care of promptly. I fished out of an older pro craft that I could run at low speed‘s even trimmed up a little and it would not porpoise. My new Skeeter will porpoise at low speed‘s with the trim all the way down. I can power out of it but it’s a little aggravating considering the price of these boats . I’m just wondering if others are experiencing the same thing, and it’s inherent to this boat , or do I have a rigging problem? Thank you for your input .

I think it's something that's inherit with Skeeters. I'm probably way off base but before the sponsons Skeeter's wouldn't do that. I had a 92' 175SX and I could go as slow as 20mph without it porpoising. I've had Ranger's and Bass Cat's and neither had that problem. I'm now in a Skeeter ZX190 and it will under 30mph and just about everytime as you come off pad. It's called the " Skeeter slap " LOL.

Cannot speak to your boat, but I own a 2014 ZX 20, and it does the same thing--slower speeds, it's going to porpoise no matter how you drive it. I have to push it somewhere around 30mph-35mph to come out of it. I was told that Skeeter changed the hull design in '15 or '16 to get rid of this, but from what you're saying, it might not have worked...

My zx250 doesn’t porpoise at all even with slow speeds. Do you have a hydraulic jack plate?

If I push to plane out with the jack plate at or below running height (12 on my gauge) and the trim all the way down, but don’t go beyond planing throttle I don’t porpoise. If I gain speed and try to back down, have the jack plate in “ shallow” mode, or have even the slightest trim, I will porpoise until I get above about 40 mph.

IF I want to cruise, I drop the jack plate and the trim all the way down, I will only give enough throttle to get on plane and drop it down to trudge along. It kicks a wake, but doesn’t bounce.

I have a 2014 fx 20 that does the same thing.

Same boat same problem here, seems like a haul a** or idle kinda boat so far. One guy told me his "hauling a load prop" doesn't do it as bad, but runs way slower. But same guy also said Skeeter was for fishing, idling for scanning, and WOT to next spot lol.

Skeeters are all the way down on both jack and motor trim while cursing around looking. Get use to it and just keep everything down. If you are going to put the peddle to the metal then let her go all out until you get ready to stop then put it all down again. That is the way it is.

I have a buddy who has a Skeeter, we nicknamed his boat frog it hopped so much, lol, probably an engine and trim heighth deal.

So you got the unicorn? Nonsense! Of course if your motor is trimmed all the way down it’s manageable but add any trim while just barely on plane and you might as well be playing a snoop dog song, cuz it’s hoppin. I have an 2018 ZX 225, yes it hops while barely on plane with any kind of trim.

Like Doug R likes to say, it’s the “Skeeter Slap”.

Yep!

My ZX250, hopped with the best of them if I had any trim at all while running below 3000rpm.. Once I learned to keep the trim all the way down until I hit 3000rpm, and then add trim, that boat was smooth, fast and stable. Just learn to drive your boat and find the "sweet spot", you will really enjoy it

I always hear the skeeters coming a mile away with that slap. I always wonder how it feels in the boat when it is doing that. Seems like it would be annoying at the very least if not uncomfortable.

Can't hear a thing Bobby. Smooth as silk. Great ride.

I have had two skeeters a 16 fx21 and now a 17 fx21 it gets real bad when u fill the livewells up. I have a atlas jackplate and tried several props my partner has a 17 zx250 u cant drive these boats under 30 without the hop im on my last bug for sure. Bty my 16 got replaced due to stress cracks and the the floor was creaking like i was gonna fall thru.

I do not have a jack plate nor do I care to buy one to resolve this. I guess I will just haul booty and take my pontoon out when I want to cruise. Thanks again for the replies. Funny how the salesman said he never heard of a skeeter bouncing.

I have a solix front and back. The crank battery would last about 1 hr before the solix started shutting down when I cranked the big engine. I replaced with a $300 upgrade battery and will still rundown 1/2 thru a tournament. No room to Add,and parallel, another battery like my old boat.. what do you guys do about that?

An fx21 without a jackplate?

My screens run all day without running battery down so you have something wrong

He probably meant hydraulic.

If you must drive that slow, CB Marine makes a custom hydrofoil that will stop the porpoising.

The more weight you have in the tail end of the boat the more tendency it will have to porpoise. Livewells full adds about 325# to the boat. Full fuel tank adds another 300#. This will make the boat have more tendency to bounce. Lower the motor on the jackplate and trim the motor all the way under and it should cruise without too much porpoise at a low speed. Having a ton of weight up front will also help minimize this but will also hurt your top-end speed more.

It's hard to have everything in a bass rig. We all want a rig that will plane at 15 mph, not porpoise, run 85 mph while getting 10 mpg, and run smoothly enough to drink your coffee in four footers. That boat doesn't exist yet. It's like transparent aluminum.

Weight management is a crazy thing in a bass rig.

Had a friend go thru the same ordeal in 2016 on a brand new one. He kept taking it back to the dealer. Skeeter finally took it back to their plant and worked on it for 3 weeks and never could fix it. They finally talked him into trading it in on a newer model. The 2017 newer model didn't do it. They simply couldn't explain it.

The sponsons were supposed to do three things for the boats.

1. Fix the backwash problem coming off plane by adding more flotation at the rear of the boat. Skeeters were notorious for this in the past. I recall the first Skeeter I ever saw with the built-in sponsons. I've gotten used to it now but it was not attractive to me.

2. Improve holeshot by diverting the water downward as the nose lifted during holeshot.

3. Minimize porpoising by adding more downforce to the nose as the water comes off the pad of the boat.

Those were the claim to fame according to Skeeter when they changed the design years ago.

Scotty already figured that one out.

I keep hearing about this especially the 2018 models.
I have yet to experience this at low speeds in my 2016 FX21 LE

Here is a simple solution

Fuel tanks topped of , live well full , extra batteries for electronics , mine will slap water till 3K - 32k rpms , got a pontoon for looking .

My Skeeter makes a slick calm lake look like I'm in 4ft rollers. I actually laugh out loud about it from time to time. Stab the peddle and she flys! Fishes good. 20mph-40mph has no place in my fishing game.

That would drive me crazy fishing at night here when there is a 35 mph speed limit on most lakes

Same hull design. And weights of the boats are almost identical.

Trim and weight distribution is the only solution to it. I don't know though. I don't really drive at slow rates. Im either going or idling around looking at structure.

I do not think that slap you are talking about has any effect on the ride, you are correct, you can hear one coming .

Several guys on the Skeeter owners page have added these and say it completely fixes any porpoising and they can run slower than normal on pad with no effect on top end. My 04 ZX225 never has done it. Probably the five thousand pounds of tackle I carry in the front of the boat.

Everything on this thread is why I got away from Skeeter. Stress cracks on the 3 I owned and it was like pulling teeth to get them to fix them. I have since went to Triton, you don't have these problems. I personally will not go back to Skeeter. Y'all may want to look at one. They're nice rigs.

This works!!!

Any noticeable top end loss? My boat porpoises (2016 ZX250) if I'm not on the trim or throttle, I can usually keep it under control, but it is annoying.

I have one of those boats!

A modified whale tail, well aint that cute. Looks like a [censored] poor cure for a badly designed hull.

Why are you going low speeds? Bass boats are not designed to run effectively for low speeds...they are designed to run at 3/4 to full speed. I see guys all the time hopping their boats when they slow down and it that completely because they do not know how to run their boat. Before letting off the the throttle just trim the motor all the way down and then let off the throttle and no brand of bass boat will hop. You have one of the finest boats on the market so just get with on of the Skeeter demo guys and they will be more than glad to show you how to properly run that FX. Enjoy that awesome boat!

Not familiar with the newer boats and motors but my old Nitro (Skeeter Starfire clone) was terrible under 35mph. I removed a long tilt limit bolt on the tilt bracket which allowed the motor to tuck in further to the bottom of the transom and I can bury the bow of the boat if needed to stop porpoising and keep the manual jack plate up high where it is needed for faster speeds.

Not just you, mine does the same. Solix 15 and 360 up front, Solix 12 at dash, 10 guage wire running directly to each one from a new Duracell group 31 AGM (31DTMAGM). I've even moved my PowerPole's to one of the trolling batteries to lighten the load on the cranking battery. I put the dash unit on standby mode when the outboard is off and run the front unit on the lowest screen brightness that's still clearly visible, especially if I'm not motoring around much and livewell pumps are running. Minus some magic fix that I'm not finding, it appears necessary to have batteries in parallel to keep those friggin units running full blast all the time without the engine running.

Also, the porpoising is not uncommon in Skeeters. All of them I have ridden in have done it to some extent at low speeds regardless of driver experience.

I had one of these on my last boat.....got a few "snickers and snide" remarks like the one above. They always shut up at weigh in though. Maybe because their perfectly tuned boats were owned by folks that couldn't care if their boats fished well. Or maybe it was the angler ...either way. Same end result.

Just kidding. Mostly.

I had a Legend LE21 that I took the "holeshot or skidplate" off when I installed a new transducer on my jack plate because I always heard the holeshot plates were snake oil, and I didn't feel like re-installing it if the plate did nothing. Man o man, that boat started purposing like crazy. Especially at lower speeds and when coming off plane. I put the holeshot plate back on and it cured my problem. Huge difference.

My FX21 also has this snake oil err I mean holeshot plate on it, and my FX21 does not porpoise. I also have a hydraulic jackplate and lower my motor at low speeds, but I see how the holeshot plate would help. Might try that.

I like my Bullet even better after reading all of this.

I haven't read every single one of these comments but I see some people above posting pics of Chris Bailey foils and they absolutely work. Some hulls porpoise, it is what it is, it is especially noticeable on faster boats with heavy motors, lots of hipo guys run these foils on their lower units for better holeshot and eliminate porpoising. On my Bullet, I went from similar issue, porpoising in the mid to upper 20s slightly, to being able to run on pad at 17 miles an hour, NO porpoising. They do not effect top end because at that point, the foil has come out of the water if your jackplate is at the proper height.
Chris Bailey Marine, CB Marine on facebook is who to order from. They are about 200 bucks for powerder coating and some nice graphics of your boat brand or whatever you desire. Don't be fooled by the wal mart ones, get a nice one from Chris or someone similar.

I run a Triton but am a firm believer that a hole shot plate allows you to plane at slower speeds. You might want to give it a try

All 3 things failed Ken. If they worked all the other manufacturers would have them. My old 92' never porpoised, had a 4 second hole shot and never backwashed coming off pad. And the hull didn't look like it had hemorrhoids, lol.

I have a 2014 FX21 and never had an issue.
Atlas jack plate set at 4

I was going to say something about how I thought they made the boat look but I feared the Hate-Mail....

I truly believe 90% of the issues people have with boats is because they don’t know to drive one,

all that money to buy a high end bass boat and you have to either run WOT , or screw around with the Skeeter slam ? I would hate to be the Skeeter dealer reading this thread .
What boats NEVER have this issue ?

So far so good for me. I thought I'd get pasted too but TFF'ers are very kind and understanding folks.

The FX 20 I had did it all the time. You get use to it.

Ken and Gig'em .....you guys need to stop. My girls taken, and I love her hemorrhoids! Quit staring at her hind end!

mine had this problem.. and it was motor height.. I put an atlas jake plate on so I can play with the heights... and found a sweet spot... problem exist no more

Hey look this is not a new problem for Skeeter. I bought a 1976 SS7 and it did it like crazy. Factory wouldn't fix it so I did. I took some epoxy putty and put me a couple of 3 inch wedges on the trailing edge of the bottom outside of the hull and stopped it. Look at the bottom of a Basscat and you will see the same thing or at least my Basscat Jaguar has them.

Ranger. In order to porpoise one must get the heavy nose up.

Yeep. My fx21 will do this if I make. If you work the trim like you should be it doesn’t happen. Never seen a boat that requires “0” interaction with the trim switch that will get on and off plane without some sort of bobbing.

It’s how they work.

I don't even have to turn and look, its a Skeeter coming in Slap slap slap sllllaaap.

My Skeeter doesn’t bounce as I’m passing all the Rangers....

The "slap" is their warning!

I have a 2018 FX21. When I first started driving it and it would do that. However, after talking to Fain at FunNSun, he explained to me that the trim is very sensitive. When I’m coming off pad, I generally trim pretty much all the way down and then come completely off pad. It never porpoises any more.

This ^^^^^

It just happens on skeeters...trim'um high and let her fly

Why are you going low speeds? Bass boats are not designed to run effectively for low speeds...they are designed to run at 3/4 to full speed. I see guys all the time hopping their boats when they slow down and it that completely because they do not know how to run their boat. Before letting off the the throttle just trim the motor all the way down and then let off the throttle and no brand of bass boat will hop. You have one of the finest boats on the market so just get with on of the Skeeter demo guys and they will be more than glad to show you how to properly run that FX. Enjoy that awesome boat!


Well.........., there are times when I’m on a new lake that I do not know.......safety. There are times when I want to scan with my 2D but cover allot of ground. There are times when the lake is extreamly rough due to wind or boat traffic, and then there are times when I want to simply enjoy easing out on glass slick water to my spot and drink my coffee in my new boat watching the sun rise without blowing or bouncing coffee into my lap. Lowering the trim all the way down is not the solution. It will bounce with the trip all the way down wether I am lowering down from high speed or easing up on the pad. Driving the boat around 20 to 25 mph is not an option. This is a great boat and I love it but would like this issue resolved. Just wanted input from others with expiernce. My understanding is Yamaha designed the hull to match the motor so you would think that since they have total control of hull design and motor design and rigging, they could resolve this. These boats are knocking on $100k nowadays so I don’t think the expectation of having a very versital boat is to much to ask. Maybe they should have an advertising campaign with the tag line, “Skeeter...:. Never go slow”

To add to that, I can drive around 20-30 mph in mine without issue, just leave it trimmed all the way down. Below that tho the boat wants to nautually fall off plane so your gonna run into limitations.

I have noticed on my 2016 ZX200 that if I slowly bring the speed up to where the boat is almost level and feather back down slightly, I can run slow and fairly level without the bounce. But it is a very fine adjustment because if I speed up enough to get to "pop" up on the pad at all, it immediately starts bouncing.

The "Skeeter Slap" is mostly due to poor driving skills ...