Are flat bottom hulls the best for outboard jet applications?
Just look around any of the river launches and youll see outboard jets strapped to a bunch of flat bottom jonboats. These hulls are shallow drafting and by many standards, work well enough. However, there are some problems probably best noted by the folks at Specialty MFG. Flat bottom hulls tend to ingest more air into the intake when running a light chop or in wind. For this reason they have a tendency to cavitate more than they should. The Jet Pump manufacturer recommends that the hull have 6-10 degrees of deadrise at the transom. This allows the air bubbles to be pushed away from the center and out to the sides. This small degree of deadrise also helps with how the hull performs at planning speeds. In the diagram below, you can see the basic differences between the 6 degrees of deadrise we have in our Snyder hulls.
