Glen-L.com

A quick follow-up to a previous post about the spray rails on our Tahoe. We have done two sea-trials with different spray rail setups, thought I'd pass along the results.

Without the spray rails, getting the Tahoe up on plane and back off is a bit like those "log-rides" you took when you were a kid. Soaked. And not in a good way.

Taking a lead from the previous post, we set up a spray rail along the chine made of Mahogany about 3/4" proud of the hull, the bottom edge of the rail is bevelled slightly (10deg). Bedded with 3M5200, fastened with 1-1/2" silicon bronze screws, capped with mahogany plugs, stained and epoxied.

In our first setup, we set the bow-end of the spray-rail back about 10" from the stem to allow for the cutwater. This took out about 80% of the spray but it is amazing how much still came from the remaining 10".

For the second trial, we spliced in an additional 10" of rail so the the rail runs from Stem to Stern and tapered the bow-end with a belt sander so that it came to a point at the stem. 100% improvement, no spray at all. Even the odd splash that came over the bow at idle was deflected away from the topsides.

Bottom line: Spray Rail is not optional and must run from Stem to Stern if you want to stay dry.

Can you show us a before and after picture? Thanks

Would love to see photos as well!

Thanks...

yeah, sorry about that, pics aren't on the machine that I'm using to post this. Will grab tonight and post asap....

Back at the right PC.

Here's a drawing of the spray-rail profile that we used. The rail is made from stock Mahogany with angles cut on a tablesaw:



Prior to attaching, the chine looked like this:



Here are two shots of the boat after the rail was attached (will attach second in next reply)

Here's a view of the rail from the bow. We "tapered" the bow-ends of the rails to make them look better.



I don't have (or can't find) picture of the first attempt with the spray rails set back from the bow by 10 inches or so, but I think you get the picture.

Great! thanx for the pics Corey!

I ended up making ones as per the plans and will install after epoxying.

Cheers
Zane

DONT TRY IT WITHOUT SPRAY RAILS It will be that log ride.I ran my Tahoe without for 2 years . Guess I was a slow learner.