First Impressions 2021 252 SE

[TwoSips]

it's all good man. not my thread. just wanted to share with others in the community how cool things seem to be progressing in the Yama mama world!

I'm envious of journey to Powell. A big revelation of moving my fam out of Cali is in the works, so that pilgrimage to Powell and future Mead runs may end up being put on hold!

 

[Ctraupman]

Looking forward to the 2021 boating season! Wife and I headed to Diego to get a '14 242 limited s this Thursday. This will be my 1st jet boat. Have had a triton and sea ray in the past. It looks like great fun and look forward to meeting others for some trips. We live in Henderson so we can be on Lake mead in about 45 min. Never been to Powell but would love to.

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

Love the pictures. I would agree there is deep water in the canyons. - I too went into Slot canyon - coolest experience ever. Dangling rope was a great stop for ice cream.
However, I had a crazy experience in a padre bay - there was a reef at about 24' depth - i was exploring for a place to dock the houseboat on Day 3. I had just done some wake surfing with kids and had 800 lbs transom bag on the port side, and the yamaha wake wedge cruising at about 8-10 mph. All of sudden 500 feet from land - i saw that it got really shallow out of nowhere like 80 feet to 3 feet and then - BAM - heard the loudest scariest sound ever. I immediately killed the engine. After seeking nothing filling or leaking i slowly started to make my way back to my house boat. Noticed that reverse was a bit stuck - (this is a sign of a pebble jamming up the gates or worse - like the prior year - that the engine mount came off and cracked the nozzle - another story)
Thankfully, I took a look underwater - what actually hit wasn't the hull.

I have cobra fangs (Magnum AK) with JB thrusters. The cobra fang on the starboard side actually hangs lower than the hull line when you have an 800lb transom bag before you plane 10mph. That hit and bent upwards the fin. (per Cobra - the aluminum bends up to give so that the fin didn't damage anything)- Well, not entirely true - because the tie rods caused it to cracked the mount to the AK (which holds it to the Hull)
Thankfully - didn't cause a no leak. We didn't even see this until 2 weeks later when my mechanic replaced the AK fin and mount.
- so that ran me $800 to fix but thankfully - no leak.

When this all happened, so many things went through my mind. So with Powell - you can't assume the depth, and like Swatski said - redundancies are key. Also - for us- bring strong young people to help with anchoring houseboats - and heavy lifting - but its the best trip ever!

I just noticed this post and felt it should be addressed, actually the tie rods either the factory or my second tie rod do not harm the rudder in order to strike the fin driving with ballast on one side you also struck the ground with the rudder I have seen rudders with nothing added break exactly as you described right at the mount on the hull it is one of the downsides of the rudder being so low Usually if you only had the original tie rod the threaded end of the steering cable would also have snapped on impact. I also have a picture of a boat that slammed the rudder into the beach when an anchor let loose, the rudder was torn off but nothing happened to the fins actually the 2 tie rods held the rudder behind the boat so they were able to drive back to the ramp without an issue. remember you saw the fin moved up from an impact, the plate allowed it to move up however the nozzle was not damaged because the fin was allowed to move up. the tie rod is attached to the nozzle NOT THE FIN! so where the fin went has nothing to do with where the tie rod went as the nozzle remained in place and the tie rod remained where it belonged, Thus the impact to the rudder caused the crack to the mount. see the 2 last pictures of the regular and deluxe versions after impacts where the outside left fin gave way without any harm to the nozzle or the rudder.

 

[dzeppos]

I just noticed this post and felt it should be addressed, actually the tie rods either the factory or my second tie rod do not harm the rudder in order to strike the fin driving with ballast on one side you also struck the ground with the rudder I have seen rudders with nothing added break exactly as you described right at the mount on the hull it is one of the downsides of the rudder being so low Usually if you only had the original tie rod the threaded end of the steering cable would also have snapped on impact. I also have a picture of a boat that slammed the rudder into the beach when an anchor let loose, the rudder was torn off but nothing happened to the fins actually the 2 tie rods held the rudder behind the boat so they were able to drive back to the ramp without an issue. remember you saw the fin moved up from an impact, the plate allowed it to move up however the nozzle was not damaged because the fin was allowed to move up. the tie rod is attached to the nozzle NOT THE FIN! so where the fin went has nothing to do with where the tie rod went as the nozzle remained in place and the tie rod remained where it belonged, Thus the impact to the rudder caused the crack to the mount. see the 2 last pictures of the regular and deluxe versions after impacts where the outside left fin gave way without any harm to the nozzle or the rudder.

Jeff: You have a great product and its designed very well. What happened to me was a crazy fluke. No blame here. My rudder was completely undamaged, not even a scratch. However, the mount to the rudder cracked (which attached to the hull)- because of the cobra fin impact.
The cobra fin hit and bent the connector clip (on the port side only). (You can see the scratch). I hit a jagged boulder in an area of rising water (lake powell has all kinds of hidden boulders/jagged rock) that clipped the left side of the cobra fin with the big transom bag weighing it down. No worries - your design is excellent and I am a loyal customer.
Happy to chat offline and I can't thank you enough for all the support you give to your customers.

 

[haknslash]

Those pics are amazing. I’d love to boat in waters like that but I’ve heard the horror stories of how it can change real nasty when wind or storms roll in. Beautiful place for sure and I’d love to visit it at least once before it’s all over.

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

Jeff: You have a great product and its designed very well. What happened to me was a crazy fluke. No blame here. My rudder was completely undamaged, not even a scratch. However, the mount to the rudder cracked (which attached to the hull)- because of the cobra fin impact.
The cobra fin hit and bent the connector clip (on the port side only). (You can see the scratch). I hit a jagged boulder in an area of rising water (lake powell has all kinds of hidden boulders/jagged rock) that clipped the left side of the cobra fin with the big transom bag weighing it down. No worries - your design is excellent and I am a loyal customer.
Happy to chat offline and I can't thank you enough for all the support you give to your customers.

Thank you ,however I just want you to realize that the fin is allowed to move up by design so that it avoids any damage to the nozzle and the tie rod is attached to the nozzle so since the nozzle did not get damaged the tie rod did not move and it did not cause the mount to crack. The crack may even have been there for a while due to parking the boat in shallow water or grounding the rudder. The reason you need to understand this is so you can look back on your habits and try to figure out why the mount incurred injury so you do not have it happen again.
If you believe this incident was the cause you will most likely have a similar issue . The common cause for the rudder to have a fracture ore worse in the mount is contact to the ground by the rudder, with an 800 lb ballast bag on the deck it just has to make contact slightly to damage it with just a fracture. You did not see any mark but hitting the bottom won't leave a mark and as I said this fracture may have been there a while. I would be sure you stay way away from shore to avoid issues with what I call the Achilles keel .