Steve-O
Active Member
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 19
- Points
- 32
- Boat Make
- Scarab
- Year
- 2019
- Boat Model
- 255 Open ID
- Boat Length
- 25
Hi all, we moved to SW Florida in November having been an I/O man most of my boating career. I briefly had a Four Winns Fling back in the 90’s, and had an old Tahiti jet boat in the eighties. I was going to bring my beloved Cobalt 262 to Florida, but everyone said ‘NO!’, don’t do it. The water is too shallow, no one will work on them, etc. So I went boat shopping and came across the 2019 Scarab 255 Open ID. I hadn’t thought about a center console much because I don’t fish (yet), but I did kind of like the idea of sitting up a little higher after all the talk of shallow water.
We looked at some other center console boats, but none of them in this size seemed to have much room for just lounging while underway (the girlfriend) and we both fell in love with the tailgate. There’s plenty of seating, plenty of drink holders and hand rails, it has a great ladder made for a diver coming out of the water with fins on, good ski locker and we liked the overall appearance of the boat...nice lines and we like the color scheme. Curtis at Cycle Springs in Clearwater hooked us up for a test ride. I was hesitant to try another jet boat although we have two Waverunners that we love and have never given a moments trouble. I was worried about the noise/sound. After reading on this forum, I was concerned about low speed handling since we have four miles of idle speed canals before getting to open water. Mainly, I was worried about whether these motors would hold up...are they going to be done in 200 hours or will they go a thousand, I guess we’ll see. When we were looking for a house, a realtor took us out on his boat and we’re just sure he hit a manatee with his outboard...he never even went back to check on it. We’ve seen some pretty cut up manatees since we’ve been here, and we thought, you know, a jet boat wouldn’t much more than give them a headache!
First impressions on our test drive with Curtis went like this…
Since I’m used to the Waverunners, and know how they are in reverse, that wasn’t a problem. Low speed handling is as easy as it was in the Cobalt, it’s just not an issue. And, it sounds pretty cool! Louder than a couple of 4-stroke outboards, but not annoying or obnoxious. Reminds me of a Mazda Rotary spooling up. So, we bought it!
Now, 55 hours later we are still enjoying the boat. It’s thirsty. It uses a good amount of gas, but the motors have been flawless. We have the electronic dash/instrumentation and it’s fun to play with, I just don’t ever want to have to replace it. It came with a good stereo so I left that alone, but added a 12” Simrad for navigation. It’s given more trouble than anything, and that was early on. We have the ACE 300 motors and the boat runs like a striped assed ape topping out at 63.3 mph with three people and half fuel! Don’t let anybody kid you, these boats are fun. We mainly cruise 12 to 20 miles from home and beach out, but the trip out and back is the best part.
Now, what are the downsides? At 8’4” wide, I wish they’d have pushed it to 8’6”. I don’t know how much that would have helped with it wallowing over large waves, but it wouldn’t have hurt. I wish it had more deadrise to help the ride in rough water. But on the other hand, we’re out now on days I wouldn’t have left the dock back home on our lake in Arkansas!
They installed black pinstriping tape where the black meets white gel coat. Not sure why, but my anchor line is rubbing it off at the bow.
The zip in canvass on the T-top flaps in the wind at anything above 25 mph. It will drive you crazy! I’m trying to work that out but for now, I mainly just leave it off. They should really look into that.
There are two little pins that hold the driver’s seat bolster up and in place. The nuts that hold them in place WILL back off and dump your ass into the floor at speed. Some Loc-Tite will fix that. The driver’s seat (the whole bench really) is pretty firm. It’s OK for a while, but on a long cruise you’ll probably stand up a good bit. Needs more, better, thicker padding on all the seats.
It’s cool that if you were to submarine into a large wave, any water in the cockpit drains overboard without going into the bilge. And they’re big drains too! That’s good, but all the overboard drains around the ski locker and engine hatch are of a small diameter tubing and will get plugged up first time the love bugs come out.
Overall fit and finish seems OK, in fact, it’s pretty good just maybe not what I was used to in the old Cobalt.
Some of the stainless steel on the boat looks very robust and is wearing well, others not so much. The dive ladder and the hinges for the tailgate are already rusting and this boats only five months old. Maybe that’s normal in salt, I don’t know.
So far, that’s all I’ve found wrong with the boat, and they’re really small things. I’m hoping someone at Scarab will see this and pass it on up the chain, we’ll see, but fixing these few items would make a pretty good boat a really great one.
Would I do it again? If my only alternative was an outboard, yes, I would. I owned a marina for twelve years and owned dozens of outboards on our rental boats, just never wanted one on MY boat, especially in the ‘skinny water’ of SW Florida.
Thanks, Steve
We looked at some other center console boats, but none of them in this size seemed to have much room for just lounging while underway (the girlfriend) and we both fell in love with the tailgate. There’s plenty of seating, plenty of drink holders and hand rails, it has a great ladder made for a diver coming out of the water with fins on, good ski locker and we liked the overall appearance of the boat...nice lines and we like the color scheme. Curtis at Cycle Springs in Clearwater hooked us up for a test ride. I was hesitant to try another jet boat although we have two Waverunners that we love and have never given a moments trouble. I was worried about the noise/sound. After reading on this forum, I was concerned about low speed handling since we have four miles of idle speed canals before getting to open water. Mainly, I was worried about whether these motors would hold up...are they going to be done in 200 hours or will they go a thousand, I guess we’ll see. When we were looking for a house, a realtor took us out on his boat and we’re just sure he hit a manatee with his outboard...he never even went back to check on it. We’ve seen some pretty cut up manatees since we’ve been here, and we thought, you know, a jet boat wouldn’t much more than give them a headache!
First impressions on our test drive with Curtis went like this…
Since I’m used to the Waverunners, and know how they are in reverse, that wasn’t a problem. Low speed handling is as easy as it was in the Cobalt, it’s just not an issue. And, it sounds pretty cool! Louder than a couple of 4-stroke outboards, but not annoying or obnoxious. Reminds me of a Mazda Rotary spooling up. So, we bought it!
Now, 55 hours later we are still enjoying the boat. It’s thirsty. It uses a good amount of gas, but the motors have been flawless. We have the electronic dash/instrumentation and it’s fun to play with, I just don’t ever want to have to replace it. It came with a good stereo so I left that alone, but added a 12” Simrad for navigation. It’s given more trouble than anything, and that was early on. We have the ACE 300 motors and the boat runs like a striped assed ape topping out at 63.3 mph with three people and half fuel! Don’t let anybody kid you, these boats are fun. We mainly cruise 12 to 20 miles from home and beach out, but the trip out and back is the best part.
Now, what are the downsides? At 8’4” wide, I wish they’d have pushed it to 8’6”. I don’t know how much that would have helped with it wallowing over large waves, but it wouldn’t have hurt. I wish it had more deadrise to help the ride in rough water. But on the other hand, we’re out now on days I wouldn’t have left the dock back home on our lake in Arkansas!
They installed black pinstriping tape where the black meets white gel coat. Not sure why, but my anchor line is rubbing it off at the bow.
The zip in canvass on the T-top flaps in the wind at anything above 25 mph. It will drive you crazy! I’m trying to work that out but for now, I mainly just leave it off. They should really look into that.
There are two little pins that hold the driver’s seat bolster up and in place. The nuts that hold them in place WILL back off and dump your ass into the floor at speed. Some Loc-Tite will fix that. The driver’s seat (the whole bench really) is pretty firm. It’s OK for a while, but on a long cruise you’ll probably stand up a good bit. Needs more, better, thicker padding on all the seats.
It’s cool that if you were to submarine into a large wave, any water in the cockpit drains overboard without going into the bilge. And they’re big drains too! That’s good, but all the overboard drains around the ski locker and engine hatch are of a small diameter tubing and will get plugged up first time the love bugs come out.
Overall fit and finish seems OK, in fact, it’s pretty good just maybe not what I was used to in the old Cobalt.
Some of the stainless steel on the boat looks very robust and is wearing well, others not so much. The dive ladder and the hinges for the tailgate are already rusting and this boats only five months old. Maybe that’s normal in salt, I don’t know.
So far, that’s all I’ve found wrong with the boat, and they’re really small things. I’m hoping someone at Scarab will see this and pass it on up the chain, we’ll see, but fixing these few items would make a pretty good boat a really great one.
Would I do it again? If my only alternative was an outboard, yes, I would. I owned a marina for twelve years and owned dozens of outboards on our rental boats, just never wanted one on MY boat, especially in the ‘skinny water’ of SW Florida.
Thanks, Steve
