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Maiden voyage wasn't perfect but we had a blast!

haknslash

Jetboaters Fleet Admiral
Messages
7,585
Reaction score
9,029
Points
567
Location
Lake Martin, AL
Boat Make
Moomba
Year
2019
Boat Model
Other
Boat Length
23
Woke up this morning and the wife and I wheel the boat out of the garage and start hooking it up the the truck. Just as we're tossing the cover over I look behind the house and a dark cloud is about to dump everything its got right over us. Too late to roll the boat back so I frantically start getting the cover on. Bottom drops out like its never dropped out before lol. So there I am getting soaked and get the cover on.....only to realize that I left the freaking anti-pooling poles in the garage! Water is pooling all on the cover so I run back in the garage and grab the poles, climb back under the cover and start setting them up. I get out and start ratcheting the cover down and noticed i left the freaking bow window open. Ugh! So back under the cover I go, completely drenched with rain, but I swear it was more sweat than anything lol. Close the window, ratchet down the cover and run back into the garage where my wife and daughter are just staring at me lol. My wife trying to make the best of it just sings out "memorieees". :D

Rain storm has passed and we need to swing by Target and Dick's Sporting goods to pick up some supplies for the day. Grab some life jackets for the wife and kiddo, some noodles to float on (don't buy the star shaped ones...they are uncomfortable despite looking cool), a new cooler to fit in the boat, new knife for the boat, first aid kit and some other safety supplies.

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By this time its near lunch and we grab a bite to eat at Mickey D's. Shoved food all in my mouth so we can get this show on the road. As soon as I leave and turn onto the interstate....its bumper to bumper traffic! Everyone and their mother is going to the beach it seems so traffic is all messed up. What should have been a nice 45 minute drive turned into a grueling fight for sanity for over an hour and 45 minutes lol. of course i need to fill up the boat and truck but every gas station was jam packed with families headed to the beach. Hell one gas station was so tight you couldn't put a dime in between my fender and the gas pump concrete things as I tried to navigate my way out of hell. Finally make it to our exit and we were able to fill up the vehicles.

Once we get to Higgins Ferry boat launch on Lake Mitchell everything was all good. Not too crowded but enough boats lined up that the anxiety was starting to set in on my first launch and docking manuever in a jet boat. turns out I'm actually fairly good at driving the boat, I guess from jet ski and seadoo days. I backed the boat off the truck, wife drove away on the ramp and then I did a 18o° turn in no wake mode and backed my boat right up next to the dock like I've been doing it for year lol. Kind of proud of that moment haha.

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We all board the boat and begin the long, tedious engine break-in process. Creeping along at 5000 RPM's and boat isn't on plane yet but it did give me a nice chance to check out the wake. The wake on a AR192 is actually pretty nice. It's hard to tell from the pics but it looks surfable and nowhere near as much jet wash as the twin engine boats.

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Cruising the lake, i drove us up to my old lake cabin that I grew up as a kid on. It sits on Ware Island which is i believe still the only island in Alabama with a landing strip for aircraft. Tons of awesome memories on that island. I didn't know what to expect or if the old cabin was still there because I've looked for years at aerial imagery and it looked like it was gone. Well it's still there but just overgrown like I've never seen it. wished my grand parents never sold it :(

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Back to cruising and site seeing. This was my daughters first time on a boat and first time even seeing a real lake with other boats and such. I could tell she was really taking it all in and having a blast. Good family times and memories were made today!

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BIG lake house!!

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One of the hydro-electric dams.

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That white speck in the tree is a huge egret that was on his/her nest.

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The swim platform is just a great place to relax. Great job Yamaha!

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After the storms broke it ended up being a fairly nice day for boating.

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And finally the obligatory watershot...

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No here's where things kind of put a damper on my day....

After swimming and relaxing we started to head back to the boat launch and get ready to retrieve the boat. I went WOT for a bit and managed to get 7200 RPM @ 42 MPH. Probably some heat soak for sure as temps were in the mid 90's and water temp read 90 on the gauge (not sure how accurate that was). If the SVHO intercooler doesn't void my warranty, i'm going to look into getting one to deal with the heat soak. I've had turbo cars so I know how frustrating it can be.

Here's where things get a little bad... As we get close to the boat launch I shut down the boat and begin to tie off my fenders and get my lines ready. I hop back in the seat and forget to plug the lanyard in but try to start the boat. Of course it doesn't start, so i realized I forgot to plug it in. I then start the boat and immediately get an Engine Overtemp alarm! I look over the side and my pissers are pissing away but I'm kind of like "WTF just happened"??? So I shut down the boat and give it a few seconds. I even cycled the battery switch off/on to see if that would 'clear the alarm'. I'm thinking to myself, "Did the boat electronics freak out for a second due to the lanyard not being in and I tried to start the boat"? I fire the boat back up and within a few seconds I get the damn overtemp alarm again. We're like 400 ft from the dock so I limp it in on no wake mode since it was a no wake zone. Again, I dock like a freaking pro :D and slide her right up to the dock. I go get my truck and back her down to retrieve the boat. Ok it's game time! All those horror stories about how these boats are a pain to retrieve and you need fins to survive. Well I'm here to say that combined with the TDE, No Wake Mode and the articulating rudder, this boat handles great at low speed. At least for me it wasn't a huge ordeal. Just keep thrust going and focus on the trailer and it was In like Flynn. What's interesting is when I hopped in the boat and fired it up, i did not get an overtemp alarm. I did however get an alarm just as I pulled up on the trailer but when I looked down it was saying 2.1 feet so i'm not sure if there is a depth alarm and that is what happened. Anyone know if there is a depth alarm without me having to fiddle through my owner's manual again tonight?

So that's how our first maiden voyage went with the new boat! I'd give it a 8 out of 10. It would get a 10 out of 10 if it weren't for the heat soak or maybe the motor just needs to break in and will get a little faster as time goes on. The biggest buzz killer though was my overtemp alarm going off. Really enjoyed the boat and my family had a great time. I am a bit hesitant to take it to the gulf next week for our vacation though due to the overtemp. Maybe it was a fluke thing but I'm not sure if I'll have time to head to the lake to see if it does it again.

Oh, and how the hell does the bimini roll back up into a nice roll? My wife and I could not figure it out so we just laid it in the floor, threw the cover on and headed home. I'll do some garage boating tonight to try and roll that sucker up again but it was like there are more braces that need to fold in to let the bimini form a nice roll shape,
 
There is a depth alarm, at least there is on my boat and I would think yours also. You can set what depth it goes off at, mine is 3' which was the factory setting.
 
There is a depth alarm, at least there is on my boat and I would think yours also. You can set what depth it goes off at, mine is 3' which was the factory setting.

Good to know. I need to read the nitty gritty menu stuff for the boat.

I'm wondering if the over temp alarm might be related to some sediment or something in the water. When we were up at the top or north end of the lake there is a damn up there and it's where our old cabin is. I was going to swim in that area but when I went on the swim platform and looked in the water I could see what looks]Ed like really fine brown algae, kind of like silt sediment if you've seen that before. Growing up there I know that the water is more churned up due to the turbines running or gates of the dam being open. So that's why I took us to the south end of the lake where water is much cleaner and clear, less stirred up if you will, I will do a flush in the morning just to be sure all of that is out. You think that might have caused the over temp?
 
Took the boat out again today to see if I could make it give the over temp alarm again and everything was perfect. Boat ran flawless all day long! :winkingthumbsup"

I think what happened was @swatski was mentioning to me in another thread. Basically I hot dogged on the engine and then shut it off without allowing it to cool down off idle for a bit. Lesson learned. Me and a good friend of mine went out and had a great day. I'm sunburned like a lobster but it was worth it! BTW he loved everything about the boat and couldn't give it enough praise. He said it rides real smooth and was amazed by the amount of storage.

Some pics from today...

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This is with an 11 mph wake. It looks surfable or no?

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Great write-up and great pictures. Thanks for sharing!
 
I don't think you could surf that. You're gonna need some really hefty friends and some ballast tanks. Both are easy to come by.
 
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