trolling plate worth getting?

[wakina]

hey wakina do you use this plate. the web site dosent give a good pic and i dont understand how it works. will it affect my handeling of the boat at the dock or at slower speeds. need to slow boat down have 150 mec. outboard on 22 ft. center console any ones comments welcome. dont want to use buckets or bags been there done that.

I used one on a 5.7L 260hp mercruiser alpha 1 generation one I/O, I had the largest one and never had a problem with it. Sold it with the boat and it is still in use after 5 years. It bolts to the top of the cavitation plate like most of the other plates do with 4 bolts. The 2 bolts closest to the boat are eye bolts with the eye bolt going up through the cavitation plate and then through the trolling plate with the eye down. There are 2 large springs that go from the donut hole plate and fasten /hook to the eye bolts, that is how it operates automaticly. As you move forward and at about 5 mph water pushes the plate out and the springs stretch allowing the donut hole plate to swing up out of the way with the water pressure then back down to the vertical position when you slow down to about 5mph. The hole in the plate allows water to pass through the plate when backing down and that keeps it out of the prop and allows better control as more water flow is allowed into the prop. These plates are heavy, and thick and to me very well made! Sounds complicated but it is an easy straight forward and very simple install.
The other plate that I had was hindged and from a different manufacturer destroyed a prop and itself when I had to do a hard reverse while trolling one day because I got to close to some debris floating in the water. The water pressure pushing on the plate shoved the plate into the prop and then it was history.