🐋 Davis Instruments XL Whale Tail Hydrofoil Stabilizer Review

I needed to stabilize my 15ft Mercury inflatable with a 40hp Honda outboard. This device really helps keep the front down and makes the boat more stable. I wish I had bought and installed one of these as soon as I bought the boat. I had trouble lifting the front end and had previously fitted a wedge to the rear with little to no improvement. "Whale Story" works much better than a wedge; and I would highly recommend it to anyone with an outboard motor inflatable motor boat.

I first installed it when it arrived but found it still had no trim range at higher rpm so I have it modified so it can be moved further forward. Now it works for both aircraft and as a cavitation plate. I have it on a 40hp Mercury 4 stroke and the difference was like night and day. The engine feels more powerful, glides instantly, revs sharper and ramps up smoothly to higher revs with little to no cavitation. Great addition for performance, easy to modify and use as a cavitation plate.

Seems small for a big engine. I put this on a 150cc Yamaha and it doesn't seem to fit. I bought it knowing I would have to change something, but it doesn't really fit. Davis doesn't set limits, but there should be limits. I attached it like the other reviewer above, but I plan to change it even more to make it fit better. With a larger engine, this takes over 15 minutes because of the interference from the anode (Yamaha 1986). Although I still like it. I'd rather have that hard piece of…

My boat is a C-Dory 22 and they work really well with my dual Honda setup. Others have reported losing mph and I understand why as they can actually point their nose down and dig in. However, in my case, with very careful trimming and some experimentation, I didn't seem to lose top speed at all. . I also didn't hit top speed and noticed no difference in cost per gallon. Anyway, the biggest plus these hydrofoils have had for my boat is that they can move over 2-3 feet of chop surprisingly…

My boat is very heavy with tiller, kicker, three batteries and a small fuel tank. Add me and I couldn't keep it going faster than 15mph on the plane. Anything above that rate would be dangerous, start at 26-27 mph and just go bad. I also modified the plate so I could easily mount it forward using three brackets on each side. I lost 1 mph at the top, 25 mph but it doesn't matter I still could never stay over 15, even if I had someone at the bow I would do 17 mph in an hour. when it's quiet, but…

These hydrofoils do exactly what they're supposed to do: lift the fuselage out of the water and lift you onto the plane. This is a good cast aluminum product with hardware and installation instructions. I spent some time making sure mine was centered and aligned before drilling holes in my cavitation plate, but you can do this in 15 minutes as advertised with a drill, a 1/4" bit and a couple of 7 /16 inch install. I had my 12ft Livingston with a 20hp Yamaha 4 stroke engine. with tiller steering