Apologies if this has already been addressed somewhere else... new to the forum.
Has anyone taken delivery of a 252 or 255 yet in the FL panhandle and actually been offshore? I'm really curious how it handles chop and how dry the ride is. I've never owned a jet before, so I'm a bit hesitant and don't know the realities of maintenance or sucking up debris in our area (Niceville, FL). The layout, real estate and cost for a boat this size looks like a no brainer for my family, but I'd hate to have buyers remorse if the ride is horrible and have to always stop to clean out the jets. Likely 70/30 family/fish and spend probably 90% of that time in the bay and not OS.
What does Yamaha do in terms of foam? I figured it's no Whaler, but anyone know how far they take it?
Thanks for any help and input!
Welcome to the forum! I think you will find a wealth of information here.
Regarding the debris question, have a look at Julians post above. I don’t have that sea grass where I boat at, but I did manage to suck up a large amount of braided fishing line one time when I wasn’t paying attention while landing a fish. When I opened the clean out port my crank bait was floating in there. Within just a few minutes I was able to clear the line off the shaft and kept on fishing for several more hours.
As far as maintenance goes there isn’t very much at all. Change the oil and filters as spec’d by the manual, my boat is every 50 hours change the filters, and oil and filters change at 100 hours. When I get to the 50 hour mark it will be oil and filters. All you’ll need besides consumables to change the oil is a vacuum type of evaluator. I bought a 7 liter mighty vac that works awesome, it is graduated so you can tell how much oil you’ve pulled out. And a lot of folks change the spark plugs once a year.
As far as the ride goes no one knows for sure on this site as there are several waiting for their boats, Yamaha like many other companies is facing supply chain problems due to the whole virus thing. Based on what I know about the logistics, most supplies are sitting in ships on the west coast of the United States waiting to be unloaded and distributed.
Yamaha stated in their press release that this is a new hull designed for off shore. One of the members here stated that he had spoken with a salesman who rode on the prototype boat and was impressed with the off shore ride. All the Yamaha boats are a dry ride overall...but if you get into a quartering head sea with wind, the spray will get lifted back onto the boat like any other boat.
As far as foam is concerned, I’ve seen evidence of foam that has been put into various cavities on my boat. As far as floatation goes in other models of Yamaha boats, I’ve read other posts by members who were caught out in some big waters and the self bailing deck of the boats performed very well. Keep in mind those models were not specifically designed for big water or off shore duties. The 252/255 FSH is designed with off shore activities in mind and has higher free board, and large deck drains in the stern.
This is the only test I’ve seen done on this new model.
2021 Yamaha 255 FSH Sport E I believe this is one of the prototypes that were going around the country.
Others vids:
Had this model been available when I purchased my boat, I probably would have bought the 255E FSH. Having said that, I’m super happy with my 210 FSH Sport.
They are amazing, versatile boats.
