2005 290slx with twin engines....

[Wildcater]

2005 290slx with twin engines.  Holiday weekend, we were loaded with guests and fuel, on choppy water.  I’ve always had a hard time maintaining the plane on this boat without going over 30mph.  But this weekend, was the worst.  I noticed the boat pulled hard to port, and when turning to starboard, it was so hard I had to use both hands.  The dealer told me to leave both engines trimmed all the way down, and only use the tabs to correct.  Could this be the reason why I’m having such a hard time driving this boat? On my previous 27ft boat, I trimmed th motor all the time to get out of the hole and get on plane.  Any suggestions?

[Papas_Pride]

Sounds like the positioning of your trim tabs may be the issue. The best advice I got regarding trim tabs is to keep them up all the time, and only use them sparingly to compensate for off center loading of the boat. Keeping the motors down and the trim tabs up should be the key in my opinion.
Safe and Happy boating!
Rick

[Gouts]

I have a 2001 280 BR with twin 350 mags 300 hp, the boats are pretty much the same,
the boat likes the drives tucked in all the time when under 3500 rpm. I only use the tabs to get on plane then just to level the boat out. Only trim the motors when trying to impress the little ones when they want to know how fast it is...

[TimboSlice]

What Pappa said.

[doug5]

This could be the power steering pump. Typically that system uses only one motor to operate the power steering. Might be wrong as you should be experiencing this at low speeds as well.