Ed's, Brian's, Mike's, John's, Luke's, Paul's & Don's boat thread

Merc 4.3 and Alpha1 outdrive

Quote from Wolverine

Yeah that's what I had. 175 hp I think! I liked it but it's a little slow out of the hole to make it a GREAT tow boat. Great first boat though and my buddy still runs my 97'.

You know what pitch prop you have. I ended up getting a new prop and it helped a lot for hole shots.

Right now it has the factory 3 blade. I am most likely going to swap on a 4 blade 17p to help get on plane faster for wake boarding. Also going to add a 550 ballast sac in the front bow floor and another 550 under the rear seats.

When i took the boat out last week It was running a bit rough and was very sluggish trying to get on plane. I wrote it off as bad fuel, but after further inspection today, I discovered the number 4 ignition wire was dangling in the breeze. The jack ass who last worked on it must have left it off... On the bright side, my boat does 60mph even running on 7 cylinders.

Here is a pic after my 7 cylinder blast down the canal.

Found a better picture of Jwalks boat on my computer.

Jasons boat, doin what it does best on the sandbar.....

Pics of the only "Real" fish ever caught from Jason's boat the one time it left the sandbar.

Quote from Wolverine

Why have the bottom painted if you trailer it?? Last owner leave it somewhere? Mine's painted but it's in a slip 7 months of the year. I hate doing it though!

PO kept it in the Rehoboth bay for a few seasons. I'm not a fan of the bottom paint either but it is what it is and it doesn't seem to slow it down.

1,100 of ballast



Boat is rated for 1,100 pounds so they will never be completely full. After boarding with 6 adults on board realized how much better that wake was!

you are pretty close to taking away 4-5 people off your capacity plate rating

Most of the time while boarding it is just 3 of us. Bought the bags because I can pump in and out water to adjust the weight to get some better wake. Both bags will never be full but allow us to put weight where it is needed. Tomorrow we'll have 6 people on the boat so they wont get used at all, but Sunday it will most likely be 3 people so they'll get used.

As for the prop, right now it has a 21p 3 blade. Still got up decently pulling a big guy up. If I find a good deal on a 4 or 5 blade in 19ish pitch I'll test it out. I figure worst case I can swap props depending on what we plan on doing. Cruising just stick on the 3 blades, boarding all day and stick on a 4 blade.

i wasn't getting in your business or anything but it's easy to forget that weight factor, when you fill the bags you might want to look to see if any of your thru hull fittings go under, if so check them out to be sure they are not allowing water to leak in.

My cousin has a Yamaha Jet boat and it has ballast bags built into the boat with pumps and all. When we were on vacation we got to wake surf it was fun. I never successfully got up but driving sure was fun.

GoPro decided to cut off less than a minute into it but got to ride double today at the end of the day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GADXKbM2wc4

Nice...She got up and out of the water with a quickness. Got a 4 blade on there now?

Quote from 2000sahara

Nice...She got up and out of the water with a quickness. Got a 4 blade on there now?

That is still the stock 3 blade actually. I may not end up changing the prop at all. With two of us she got up fairly fast, and with 1 person and weight in the boat it still pops right now. Impressive little boat.

as most of you have seen..i joined the boat club. hoping to let this boat see some water as it's prior owners (my parents) are no longer able to boat due to lifestyle changes caused by my father's heart transplant. Got a good deal, in great shape, and well maintained...just didnt see a lot of water in the last 6 years. It's only a 18.4 foot with a 4.3 merc i/o so hopefully i can get some river runs in between trips to raystown lake in south central pa (where it has been used since new) going to try elk neck first i think...there is also a ramp at the mouth of the elk river closer to elkton. anyone use it? curious about it's access during low tide. may have to start going down and scoping it out.

excited to get on the water more...going to have it looked over and replace the impeller, change the fluids, and run some gas through this thing.