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Mini Vee Race Boat Plans
Page Seven
Pad, Lifting Strakes

The Pad

Bevel the bottom plywood along the plywood keel.

The edges of the pad are parelell from the transom to bulkhead three. Make sure these edges are perfectly straight. The width can be taken from the plans, or measured directly from your boat which may differ slightly from the plans, especially since plywood is not always quite as thick as it is described.

After installation, make sure the pad is dead flat, especially the last four feet (from the transom forward 48"). This is your principal running surface at wide open throttle. Sand or plane down high areas, and fill low spots as necessary. The rest of the pad should be reasonably flat as well.

Leave the corners of the pad sharp so that spray coming off the pad will slide right by and exit the hull. A rounded edge will encourage the spray to follow the edge and remain on the boat, causing drag.

Where the pad begins to narrow, you may start to bevel the edge until it is beveled parelell to the bottom plywood. There will be a tranistion area a foot or so long where the edge is only partially beveled.

Lifting strakes

Lifting strakes probably do little lifting, if any. They are actually spray rails, designed to push the spray off the boat. As long as spray is sliding along the bottom (or any other part) of the boat, it is causing drag.

I carried the strakes from the transom up to a point about mid-way between bulkheads one and two. At wide open throttle, not much of the boat is in the water anyway.

I installed them by driving screws through the strake and into the plywood. I extracted the screws later and filled the holes. It may be possible to screw from underneath, but that seemed more troublesome than filling screw holes.

Two types of strakes are shown at right. I used the shape closer to the pad, reasoning that they would serve as a turn fin as well as a spray rail. Mine are about 1" on a side.

The other shape is the typical one you will see on commercially manufactured boats. The bottom edge should be about 1.5" wide.

So which is better? I guess I would side with the manufacturers, and assume they know what they are doing. My next Vee will be done the "typical" way.

Either way, leave the corner sharp.

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