You have to watch any kind of tabs backing up but they are in the down position until you get up on plane and stay there until you throttle down. I never had any problems as I always go slow in reverse and never noticed any handling problems and they are not that big. I have large bennets on my big boat and sometimes forget that they are down and dont notice it until I throttle up. I would be more concerned about putting them on a hull powered by a jet drive outboard because if you stop in shallow water they will be on the bottom which is not good...Frank