Thinking of taking the jet boat plunge

[djetok]

8 people on our 21 footer is not TOO crowded as adults. With kids it not bad at all except keeping the little buggers in their seats.

 

[Matt Phillips]

You can easily find good 23 footers out there. I sold mine with 225 hours over 5 seasons of troublefree use. The ONLY issue I ever had with is was a loose fuel line hose clamp last year. $4 and an hour of time to buy a new one at a local Napa and we were on the go again.

Fuel burn was usuallypretty good on my 23'. Last year over 4 days on Lake Shasta, I burned an average of 7.1 gallons of fuel per hour while primarily wake boarding and tubing.

As others have said, Chap and others now make jet boats so if you like the quality of the Chap, that's an option. For me and where I primarily boat, the Yamaha makes a better option due to the clean out ports.

 

[swatski]

You can easily find good 23 footers out there. I sold mine with 225 hours over 5 seasons of troublefree use. The ONLY issue I ever had with is was a loose fuel line hose clamp last year. $4 and an hour of time to buy a new one at a local Napa and we were on the go again.

Fuel burn was usuallypretty good on my 23'. Last year over 4 days on Lake Shasta, I burned an average of 7.1 gallons of fuel per hour while primarily wake boarding and tubing.

As others have said, Chap and others now make jet boats so if you like the quality of the Chap, that's an option. For me and where I primarily boat, the Yamaha makes a better option due to the clean out ports.

Some really good points here! I'm also noticing that with water sports like wakeboarding fuel usage is VERY reasonable. Running WOT - the burn rate goes way up, but that is not unique to jet propulsion.

I would also like to point out that a Chaparral jet boat will not be the same quality, fit and finish- as well as ride-wise, as their more traditional offerings. Heck, they don't even include their jet boat offerings in regular promotional brochures.
Yamaha has a bit of a home-field advantage, at least for now, having essentially created this new category of a family-friendly jet runabouts.

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[Jp127]

What year did Yamaha put an hour meter on their jet boats. While looking it seems the older ones (08 on down maybe?) don't have them.

 

[Scuba_ref]

Some people put an after market meter on, my boat has one for each engine although the Port meter reads zero hours. You can always check the hours with the YDS software.

 

[GMAN2015]

You can easily find good 23 footers out there. I sold mine with 225 hours over 5 seasons of troublefree use. The ONLY issue I ever had with is was a loose fuel line hose clamp last year. $4 and an hour of time to buy a new one at a local Napa and we were on the go again.

Fuel burn was usuallypretty good on my 23'. Last year over 4 days on Lake Shasta, I burned an average of 7.1 gallons of fuel per hour while primarily wake boarding and tubing.

As others have said, Chap and others now make jet boats so if you like the quality of the Chap, that's an option. For me and where I primarily boat, the Yamaha makes a better option due to the clean out ports.

Just attended the Cooper River run. Close to 300 miles. I burned Approximately 108 Gallons of fuel for the entire trip and averaged around 2.6 MPG. And @robert843 and I were moving close to 40mph from Charleston back to Wacca Wache Marina around 68 miles. My 05 230Ho was spinning close to 9000 rpms give or take some WOT time catching back up Robert as I would drift back. These boats are made to run. Will not be looking at a prop boat anytime soon.

 

[swatski]

What year did Yamaha put an hour meter on their jet boats. While looking it seems the older ones (08 on down maybe?) don't have them.

I think all 1.8 boats have hour clocks, so any 2010+ MY 240/242 and 212 boat would have a meter. I think for pre-2010 230 and 210 boats with MR-1s would need a YDS to read hours. All single engine models are 2012+ w/1.8.

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[Scuba_ref]

Some people put an after market meter on, my boat has one for each engine although the Port meter reads zero hours. You can always check the hours with the YDS software.

This is the after market meter that is in my boat:

https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-ENG-METER-4C-01-Deluxe-Engine-Meter/dp/B00IAQ4HJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495638484&sr=8-1&keywords=yamaha+engine+hour+meter

 

[Jp127]

So if I were to buy a boat without an hour meter I could buy my own YDS cable or ask someone to come with me to check the hours on a prospective boat?

 

[Scuba_ref]

So if I were to buy a boat without an hour meter I could buy my own YDS cable or ask someone to come with me to check the hours on a prospective boat?

Correct, it actually gives you that hours detail by rpm range so you can also tell how hard the boat was run!

 

[swatski]

This is the after market meter that is in my boat:

https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-ENG-METER-4C-01-Deluxe-Engine-Meter/dp/B00IAQ4HJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495638484&sr=8-1&keywords=yamaha+engine+hour+meter

This wouldn't read the hours retrospectively though, would it? Which I think is what the OP is trying to figure out.

EDIT: I guess missed the new posts above!

 

[Scuba_ref]

Correct, it would only read the hours going forward after install. These are really simple devices where a wire is wrapped around one of the spark plugs and it senses the plug firing and keeps track of the time the plug is firing. YDS is the way to go for getting total hours on boats like mine without a built in hour meter.

 

[jdonalds]

I added an engine our meter to my 2006. Do you know that you can read engine hours from the ECU data too?

 

[tocelli]

No way. I live in frisco. 1300 miles home to Bahia mar. There are people driving from Washington and MrMouse is driving from Canada this year.

We literally bought the boat just for the Bimini trip, so we are practicing/prepping for Bimini every weekend at lake ray Roberts. Please let me know if oyou like to spend a day at the lake so you can be a better feel.

@Betik @Jp127 @captras We recently moved to Little Elm and wanted to say hello to fellow Texans. We are presently boating on Lewisville until we get familiar with the area and get settled.

 

[Betik]

@tocelli we are going to Lewisville tomorrow 12 to 4.
@Scottintexas will be there. One more boat and it makes it officially a gathering.

@ApelilaRains not quite texoma but a quick local run.

 

[Ronnie]

So if I were to buy a boat without an hour meter I could buy my own YDS cable or ask someone to come with me to check the hours on a prospective boat?

I believe Yamaha put hour meters on the boats when the 240 series replaced the 230 series in 2010. So if someone tries to sell you a 2010+ 230 ....

If you can't get a hold of a yds cable and software you can bring the boat into a Yamaha dealer and /or possibly a pwc shop to have the hours read (if the seller is willing and the dealer or shop are close, etc.). I had the hours read by a Yamaha dealer on a 2006 230 before I sold it. The cost was about $40 per engine 5 years ago and Got a print out of the number of hours, a list of the errors the engines threw and when, etc.

If I would have kept the boat I would have also bought the Cable and SW about $80 I think and added hour meters after bumping up the hours on them to the actual hours of the engines (by attaching a battery to the meters and setting an alarm to remind me when to pull the batteries).

You are coming up on a good time to buy a new or used boat, the start of the off season.

 

[Jp127]

@Betik @Jp127 @captras We recently moved to Little Elm and wanted to say hello to fellow Texans. We are presently boating on Lewisville until we get familiar with the area and get settled.

Hola! I've been busy a while and just got back here. Good luck with Lewisville! That lake scares me! We live in the southern portion of DFW and boat on Joe Pool, Granbury, and Richland Chambers. I'm not a big fan of Joe Pool, but it's only 15 minutes away.

If you can make it down to one of the lakes off the Brazos, I highly recommend it. They are beautiful (Possum Kingdom, Granbury, or Whitney).

But, the prettiest lake I've ever been to is Broken Bow. I highly recommend that one.