Hunting for information

[bearcat800]

Hello everyone! My wife and I are going to be looking into purchasing a boat here soon. We live in Wilmington North Carolina and typically put our seadoo in the water in carolina beach or wrightsville beach and ride up the intracoastal waterway to topsail island or hang around the wrightsville area. The waterway is typically calm during the week however can get rough on the weekends with all the boat traffic. I don't want anything smaller than 21 feet in length. Would you say that a Jetboat would do well on the waterway...It would be used for pulling a wakeboard and tubes as well as hanging out on one of the various beaches. I have heard the maneuverability can be suspect especially at low speeds and in choppy situations. I've also heard they can suck the gas pretty badly . Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated. I love jetboats and if it were going to be used predominantly on a lake then I wouldn't have as many concerns. I like the ease of maintenance with the jetboat and being able to simply flush out the exhaust by hooking a hose up just like I do with the seadoo. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

[Michal]

Hello everyone! My wife and I are going to be looking into purchasing a boat here soon. We live in Wilmington North Carolina and typically put our seadoo in the water in carolina beach or wrightsville beach and ride up the intracoastal waterway to topsail island or hang around the wrightsville area. The waterway is typically calm during the week however can get rough on the weekends with all the boat traffic. I don't want anything smaller than 21 feet in length. Would you say that a Jetboat would do well on the waterway...It would be used for pulling a wakeboard and tubes as well as hanging out on one of the various beaches. I have heard the maneuverability can be suspect especially at low speeds and in choppy situations. I've also heard they can suck the gas pretty badly . Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated. I love jetboats and if it were going to be used predominantly on a lake then I wouldn't have as many concerns. I like the ease of maintenance with the jetboat and being able to simply flush out the exhaust by hooking a hose up just like I do with the seadoo. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Hey there,

We are in Hampstead and we have a 2019 SX195. We are definitely going to upgrade in the near future. But for now, our 19-foot boat is serving us very well. In the chop and in calm waters. I've been in some rough waters with this thing, and it handles much better than expected. There is actually a few of us that live in the area that frequent the ICW all the time. You can check out my very much amateur channel.

Also if you are on FB we have a Facebook Groups . Maintenance is a breeze, these things do not mind salt at all. Just flush after and you are good. Pulling tubes, or any other towables will not be an issue.

Picture is from Topsail Island.

 

[bearcat800]

that's awesome! how do you like your boat when it comes to using it on the waterway?

 

[Michal]

that's awesome! how do you like your boat when it comes to using it on the waterway?

We love it! I'll be honest and say that yes, I need to slow down and take the wake of an oncoming boat at an angle. A bigger boat would have it easier time. We don't spend as much time going up and down as we do just going to the sandbar or island and hang out. We trailer quite a bit and hit up the Albemarle Sound. My parents live up that way. I can say that almost every time I go out on the water from Hampstead, I see at least 2 or 3 Yamahas out.

 

[bearcat800]

How does your boat do on gas and what kind of speeds do you get out of it?

 

[Michal]

How does your boat do on gas and what kind of speeds do you get out of it?

I get about a million smiles per gallon. The fastest I've ever been on it was 53Mph GPS confirmed, that was just me and a buddy on a quarter of a tank with the wind pushing us along. If the boat is full of people I normally get low to mid 40s. I honestly don't know how accurate the gallons per hour is, but at cruising speed it's somewhere around 8 gallons per hour.

 

[bearcat800]

sounds good! We wouldn't be running it non stop or anything so I would like to think just from running it up the waterway to find a beach to hang out at that I could take it out 3 or 4 times on a tank of gas

 

[Michal]

sounds good! We wouldn't be running it non stop or anything so I would like to think just from running it up the waterway to find a beach to hang out at that I could take it out 3 or 4 times on a tank of gas

Easy! we have a 40-gallon tank and it lasts about 4 or 5 outings on the ICW.

 

[bearcat800]

your boat is a single engine correct? I think we would be interested in a dual engine yamaha so hopefully the fuel consumption would stay fairly minimal with just running it up to find a beach.

 

[adrianp89]

If you have the cash - the new 25' ride amazing. It's like a Rolls Royce and my SX210 was an old beat up truck.

 

[Michal]

your boat is a single engine correct? I think we would be interested in a dual engine yamaha so hopefully the fuel consumption would stay fairly minimal with just running it up to find a beach.

correct, single engine and supercharged. the dual engine should be around the same. Watch some boat test videos if you have not yet, they give pretty accurate fuel consumption.

 

[bearcat800]

Awesome! I appreciate the information thus far!

 

[Michal]

If you have the cash - the new 25' ride amazing. It's like a Rolls Royce and my SX210 was an old beat up truck.

100% agree the next one for us will be a 25 footer

 

[captras]

Hello everyone! My wife and I are going to be looking into purchasing a boat here soon. We live in Wilmington North Carolina and typically put our seadoo in the water in carolina beach or wrightsville beach and ride up the intracoastal waterway to topsail island or hang around the wrightsville area. The waterway is typically calm during the week however can get rough on the weekends with all the boat traffic. I don't want anything smaller than 21 feet in length. Would you say that a Jetboat would do well on the waterway...It would be used for pulling a wakeboard and tubes as well as hanging out on one of the various beaches. I have heard the maneuverability can be suspect especially at low speeds and in choppy situations. I've also heard they can suck the gas pretty badly . Any information you can give will be greatly appreciated. I love jetboats and if it were going to be used predominantly on a lake then I wouldn't have as many concerns. I like the ease of maintenance with the jetboat and being able to simply flush out the exhaust by hooking a hose up just like I do with the seadoo. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

You will not regret the jet boat decision. I came from a 21 foot I/0 with a 5.7L 260 HP V8. My 242 has twin 180s - 360HP, so it does drink more gas, but comparing apples to apples it is not that far off. I avg'd about 8-9 gals/hour on the old boat and 10-12 GPH on the 242 running cruising speed of about 25-28MPH. However, the ride, the comfort, the ease/low maintenance, the no worries about a stump ripping off your stern drive all make it WELL worth the additional (if any) gas expense. You will save more money on maintenance than you will spend on any increase in fuel consumtion cost. You cant put a price of the safety aspect of not having that huge prop and drive in the water for the kids to get hurt by. As far as maneuverability.....that is all anti-jet drive propaganda! I generally avoid any water less than 2 feet deep, but that is much more shallow than my I/O. It had a 33" draft on the I/0....16" on the Yamaha. I can turn my boat 180 degrees in an area not much wider than the length of
my boat! It just takes some practice, because it is quite a different skill set! I say go for it and dont look back!!!