Chaps I was out on a mates new Stabicraft 530 yesterday, has an ETEC 90, all brand new drop dead gorgeous rig.

He has been out a few times, first few times he and wife complained of a noisey vibration at lower revs - approx 1500, that seems to have disappeared when I was there to have a listen at idle and slow speed, warm up "take her out"...maybe a bit of a decent run and run in routine has loosened whatever was tight...albeit ETEC's are supposed to be out of the box full noise no run in...but who does that apart from Yanks on infomercial marketing duties?

...So we did some good running Sunday, went with the sea and played with the trim to explain to Mike the various settings in various seaways to what suits the boat and how she rides in those conditions and to see if in; 1 - 1.5metres of strong harbour chop and a strong constant 15 knotter with the odd few bigger potholes and square waves that can nail you big time... to see if she would bury her nose, broach and be un-Stabi so to speak...cos this harbour can be very narly and so the Stabi just ate it up in its stride, we found the happy medium and happy ride with small trim increments upwards of the ETEC and a bit of a spurt up to test her in a following sea.

We even trolled some baby Pakula Dojo Peche lures past and around the poles and markers up the harbour for Kings and wow just wow these things swim like baby marlin lures, the splash, action..smoke tails..wobble...vibration.. and oops wrong thread...I am bad

So the ETEC held good trolling speed too as we carried on to try various spots up the harbour. We were visited by a few Kingies and a VERY ANGRY Mollyhawk, Huge Black Backed Gull...that attacked my mate to pieces cos it ate his huge Pilchard... And Mike was fighting this HUGE BIRD whilst I fought my Kingi,

I couldn't help him and he couldn't help me... I threw in...  my towel...to Mike to wrap up the Pteradactyl (SP) Huge Dinosaur looking bird, whilst I was hooked up to a KING in one hand and trying to flick a pillie to its big brother on the Fin-Nor Eggbeater...

Anyways...several more spots and trips around the harbour later it was time go home and Mike gave me the Helm, and said; "Number One Take US home AT Best Available Speed", so we cruised off slowly got up onto the plane and sat on about 3200rpm, played with the trim, found the happy medium, met the big chop coming home and by now with wind against tide there was some narly 1.5 - 2 metre waves with deep troughs and the stabi just ate it for breakfast, it was a very very impressive ride, got to Manganese Pt, gave her a quick squeeze up to full noise and transwarp factor 4.8 in the chop and then back down and did a port 10 and slowly made our way into Parua bay and once over the shoals and passed the anchored traffic, we opened the ETEC up and took her up to full noise and wide open throttle again and trimmed her right up and sustained that for a good 3-4 mins and then eased her down as we approached the ramp area and 5 knot boundary, I found she was still on the plan at 2600rpm and then cruised slowly into the boat ramp.

Question please, at full noise and WOT she was only pulling 4800rpm as I would have expected about 5500RPM. It is fitted with a Viper Stainless Prop, looks a big one, I don't know the prop details as it came as standard fitted.

So does anyone know why or is 4800RPM full RPM for an ETEC?

Cheers
Al