Goodmorning Grant,
Yes they are, the strakes help lift the boat out of the water when the speed increases, omitting them, or making them the wrong size and shape, like Giancarlo's boat in the video, will make the boat run wet.
In Giancarlo's case his version of the 'turnfins', with waterinlets on them, makes matters (a lot) worse, the drag of a pipe, being pulled through the water, is huge, it's the main cause for this boat being so slow and ill handling.
A turnfin should only get wet when the boat banks into a turn. Your Wasabi only needs one (1) turnfin on the right.
Giancarlo has created a medium fast fountain...
There's a second video of this boat where it scares the owner by almost flipping, running over its own wake, which is something that can happen (the flipping I mean) but not at such a low speed...:
https://youtu.be/BtGTxX7n7QkGiancarlo is a skilled builder (and has the tools), but he has no clue on how to get a fast electric moving...
He uses the waterinlet behind the prop, which works fine with a scale model, but is totally out of place on a fast electric:
https://youtu.be/LnDPCPeW_qAWatch what he wants to slow down this beautiful build cat with, at 1:11 :
https://youtu.be/8qm-1VLz71kI added a picture of the strakes on my Arowana (top) and Jetchopper30 hulls, both 800mm hulls. Similar but not identical approaches on how to use strakes.
Notice the absence of strakes in the triangle that is the last part of the hull, strakes on that sectionwill cause lift, which will push down the bow, leaving you with a very bad behaving boat.
Having no strakes in the last part also helps the hull to turn when rudder is applied.
As the water isn't scaled down, the strakes need to be wider and higher than on a fullscale boat in order to be something else than ornamental.
Make sure to glass the bottom first before gluing on the strakes with epoxy resin, as strakes need to be sharp to be effective.
Regards, Jan.