New to Jet Boating

[Peggy L]

Hi everyone! We are newbies when it comes to jet boating. We'vebeen boating for years but this will be her first experience with a jet boat.

We had a demo ride on one and loved it!! But
We've heard that jet boats are terrible in waves and white caps. We TRIED looking for waves, even went out an inlet and into the ocean and found nothing!! What can you share of your experiences? The good and the bad Please and thank you.

 

[itsdgm]

Welcome aboard @Peggy L and congrats on the new boat. I don't have any open water experience with my boat, so I'll leave that to the experts. I do know that our boats tend to track a bit differently over wakes and waves. This is due to not having an out drive to help keep it on course. Also, my boat tends to sit a bit low on the bow, so that makes it more likely to take a wave over the bow. But like I said, I don't boat in open water, so guys who do will have a better comparison.

Again, welcome and glad that you found us and decided to join in all the fun.

 

[DJMattyT]

I have to tell you, my Scarab handles waves great!! My brother has a 20ft searay and it slaps with the waves where my Scarab rides it like a jetski. I've gotten the entire boat out of the water because it's light but it doesn't really slam down like most boats. I like it!

 

[Scottintexas]

glad to have you on board, that's a great boat! I also only boat on lakes so I don't have any first hand knowledge to share only to use common sense when testing it and make your own judgment as to many people that comment on jet boats think of the early 2000's low freeboard boats

 

[OCMD]

These are not ocean boats, or even rough lake boats. Very uncomfortable. I have taken mine into the Atlantic. Not fun at all. If you will be spending time in anything over 2 feet swells you will not have a fun time. If the LonG Island sound is generally calm, you will be fine. YOu can't beat these boats for the maintenance, or actually, lack of maintenance.

 

[elcue]

I take mine out in the ocean very seldom, but when I do I found the inlet and rough chop to be worse than actual waves. I don't know if that makes sense but Barneget inlet in NJ can be pretty rough at times and the boat doesn't handle that great. When I do get through the inlet the waves in ocean aren't that bad. I never went out in the ocean in anything considered rough waters but I think these boats are just too light and the low bow makes water come over. Of course you can take it in the ocean and be fine, but if the ocean and rough waters are going to be your normal course I would look elsewhere. I'm in the bay or on rivers 90% of the time so its ability to handle the sloppy waters didn't really factor into my decision. I've taken multiple waves over the bow going out to the ocean. Especially when going through the canal when you can't really go fast enough to get the boats bow up and a 40 footer comes by throwing large wake boat just gets eaten up.

 

[DJMattyT]

These are not ocean boats, or even rough lake boats. Very uncomfortable. I have taken mine into the Atlantic. Not fun at all. If you will be spending time in anything over 2 feet swells you will not have a fun time. If the LonG Island sound is generally calm, you will be fine. YOu can't beat these boats for the maintenance, or actually, lack of maintenance.

Yeah I'm in the Long Island Sound and typically it's not lake calm. Again my boat handles as best as I imagine any 19-21 footer will handle

 

[Matt Phillips]

Welcome to Jet Boating!

I boat in Lake Tahoe which gets it's share of white caps and they often put warnings out on the lake. I've obviously been out on calm and not so calm days. I've never felt unsafe in my Yamaha and knew it was up to the weather on the rougher days. What I have noticed about this boat is that like others have said, the bow is rather low, so it's easy to take a wake over the bow. The correction to this is to add some power to it which will bring the bow up.

Compared to other I/Os I've piloted in the past, the Yamaha does wander around more in waves/wind/current. I believe this is due to no real rudder on it, as well as lighter weight. Once I got used to it, this wasn't an issue for me.

 

[octavio3311]

If I was boating exclusively in the ocean, a Yamaha wouldn't be my first choice.

 

[Gym]

@Peggy L. Welcome aboard and congrats on your new boat. I boat exclusively on the ocean on Cape Cod, MA. Conditions where I boat tend to be choppy much of the time. Chop being more uncomfortable than swells. I've been out in 3 foot chop and 6 foot swells. The chop was worse and wetter.

My boat is a foot shorter and somewhat lighter than yours but I find it handles the seas fairly well for this type of boat. It is pretty much up to individual tolerance and skill level. If you want it smooth most of the time you may want to stay inland but I find most of the interesting boating, near me, is off shore traveling to the various islands and bays of the Cape. Boating is an adventurous sport. Just keep it within your capabilities.

 

[subysti]

@Peggy L welcome Peggy. I've had mine in the sound a few times with no issues. I launch out of old saybrook, niantic and Groton CT and head to fishers island, the race, plum island and plum gut with no issues. Worst day was about 5-6 foot chop and that was a rough ride back but no problems, just take it slow. We get so used to these boats at 40+ mph it's seems like you're dragging at 15-20. We did get nailed by a rouge wave once when we were fishing in the race guessing about a 10 footer. We were lucky enough to see it at the last minute and nosed in to it but it went completely over the boat and left us with about a foot of water in the whole boat. Just kept moving and the scupper did its job and emptied the boat quickly.

 

[morgro269]

The newer 24' boats handle much better than the previous years did in the chop and waves. The keel cuts through pretty good....

 

[Peggy L]

Welcome aboard @Peggy L and congrats on the new boat. I don't have any open water experience with my boat, so I'll leave that to the experts. I do know that our boats tend to track a bit differently over wakes and waves. This is due to not having an out drive to help keep it on course. Also, my boat tends to sit a bit low on the bow, so that makes it more likely to take a wave over the bow. But like I said, I don't boat in open water, so guys who do will have a better comparison.

Again, welcome and glad that you found us and decided to join in all the fun.

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and for your comments!

@Peggy L welcome Peggy. I've had mine in the sound a few times with no issues. I launch out of old saybrook, niantic and Groton CT and head to fishers island, the race, plum island and plum gut with no issues. Worst day was about 5-6 foot chop and that was a rough ride back but no problems, just take it slow. We get so used to these boats at 40+ mph it's seems like you're dragging at 15-20. We did get nailed by a rouge wave once when we were fishing in the race guessing about a 10 footer. We were lucky enough to see it at the last minute and nosed in to it but it went completely over the boat and left us with about a foot of water in the whole boat. Just kept moving and the scupper did its job and emptied the boat quickly.

Thanks

Welcome aboard @Peggy L and congrats on the new boat. I don't have any open water experience with my boat, so I'll leave that to the experts. I do know that our boats tend to track a bit differently over wakes and waves. This is due to not having an out drive to help keep it on course. Also, my boat tends to sit a bit low on the bow, so that makes it more likely to take a wave over the bow. But like I said, I don't boat in open water, so guys who do will have a better comparison.

Again, welcome and glad that you found us and decided to join in all the fun.

Thank you so for the advice and the welcome!

 

[Peggy L]

I have to tell you, my Scarab handles waves great!! My brother has a 20ft searay and it slaps with the waves where my Scarab rides it like a jetski. I've gotten the entire boat out of the water because it's light but it doesn't really slam down like most boats. I like it!

Thanks DJMATTYT. We did look at the Scarabs at the boat show. Nice boat! Thanks fir the advice!

 

[tdonoughue]

I have no advice to offer. Strictly a lake boater here (with the skills to match, right now, so that is fine).

However, I did want to welcome you. One thing I have learned is that there is a wealth of experience on this site and folks willing to comment and help. So you are in the right place. We are happy to have you here.

 

[robert843]

@Peggy L welcome I will agree with what most others have said these boats are capable of handling ocean travel but if your plan is to spend even 25% of your time off shore you will really want to look into an offshore boat instead of this. Bays, rivers and lakes theses boats do well in rough but offshore in white caps no thanks been there done that. @subysti 5-6 chop man I wouldn't want to do that in this boat at all lol you are the man for getting back in safely. The 3-4ft chop on the Bimini trip last year was rough and we lost two boats 5-6 ft chop I'm sure we would have lost at least another 2 boats. 5-6 foot chop even on my old 27 ft offshore boat those conditions would make you pucker up.

 

[Peggy L]

Welcome aboard @Peggy L and congrats on the new boat. I don't have any open water experience with my boat, so I'll leave that to the experts. I do know that our boats tend to track a bit differently over wakes and waves. This is due to not having an out drive to help keep it on course. Also, my boat tends to sit a bit low on the bow, so that makes it more likely to take a wave over the bow. But like I said, I don't boat in open water, so guys who do will have a better comparison.

Again, welcome and glad that you found us and decided to join in all the fun.

@Peggy L welcome I will agree with what most others have said these boats are capable of handling ocean travel but if your plan is to spend even 25% of your time off shore you will really want to look into an offshore boat instead of this. Bays, rivers and lakes theses boats do well in rough but offshore in white caps no thanks been there done that. @subysti 5-6 chop man I wouldn't want to do that in this boat at all lol you are the man for getting back in safely. The 3-4ft chop on the Bimini trip last year was rough and we lost two boats 5-6 ft chop I'm sure we would have lost at least another 2 boats. 5-6 foot chop even on my old 27 ft offshore boat those conditions would make you pucker up.

wow! During the Bimini trip you lost two boats? What happened?I don't think I'd want to be out in a crowd of chop. We mainly do boating in the great Southbay here on Long Island. When we had a larger but we did the ocean when we went out east to Montauk point and Greenport.

 

[Peggy L]

Welcome aboard @Peggy L and congrats on the new boat. I don't have any open water experience with my boat, so I'll leave that to the experts. I do know that our boats tend to track a bit differently over wakes and waves. This is due to not having an out drive to help keep it on course. Also, my boat tends to sit a bit low on the bow, so that makes it more likely to take a wave over the bow. But like I said, I don't boat in open water, so guys who do will have a better comparison.

Again, welcome and glad that you found us and decided to join in all the fun.

Thank you for the warm welcome Dennis. And thank you also for your help!

 

[robert843]

wow! During the Bimini trip you lost two boats? What happened?I don't think I'd want to be out in a crowd of chop. We mainly do boating in the great Southbay here on Long Island. When we had a larger but we did the ocean when we went out east to Montauk point and Greenport.

Lots went wrong but two boats took waves over the bow and lost power. There were multiple issues that led to this. Neither boat sank but both had to be rescued by seatow.

 

[2nazt]

I have had mine out in some 4-5 already it doesn't cut to well and gets pushed around a lot. Just need to pay attention to throttle input and reading waves. Even in larger boats I find no joy in venturing out in those conditions to start with. But I feel confident if I have to find my way back in my boat. As stated don't slow or water won't drain and never go out above your ability level.