New toy finally showed up!

I can't wait to try it out, but the river is frozen solid so it will be a little while. It's a 14' jet sprint boat with a 350 crate motor and American jet drive.

Wow! That thing looks fast sitting still.
Frozen water oh man I'd die waiting.

I sold my Jersey Speed Skiff late last summer, it needed a lot more water and the river gets pretty low in late summer and fall so I was looking for something else to play with. Here's the speed skiff I had last year.

WOW!!!!
I'd be wearing a helmet and Depends.

:LOL2:

Insane! :beer:

Wow

But is it fast? Faster than a 12' tin with a 9.9 Evinrude? :LOL2:

I just need to figure out where to put the rod holders! :lol:

JL8Jeff said:

I just need to figure out where to put the rod holders! :lol:

Click to expand...

Plan on doing some trolling?

where is the trolling motor, fish finder and rod holders?

That's the only jet sprint boat I've ever seen without a rollbar. I hope you have plans to address that...

slick said:

WOW!!!!
I'd be wearing a helmet and Depends.

Click to expand...

Now that's funny right there. :LOL2:

openseat said:

That's the only jet sprint boat I've ever seen without a rollbar. I hope you have plans to address that...

Click to expand...

I'm not planning on racing it so a rollbar would make it more dangerous. If you hit your head on a rollbar without a helmet, you're in big trouble. You would want a proper seat/harness as well but for pleasure, you don't want to be strapped in if there are no rescue boats around. I planning on having fun with it, not going crazy. I learned a lot with the speed skiff, 400 hp in a 16' boat makes you respect it.

Getting closer to running it for the first time, but this past weekend was way too windy and the river came up 5' so there was a lot of debris floating down from the winter. When I took off the OR numbers, I found ID numbers underneath that were painted on (3 layers worth for a nice showing effect). So it took me a good week and a half after work to wet sand off the old numbers. It was finally warm enough to break out the hose so I was able to clean off all the road salt from the journey it took across the country back in Feb as well.

I think I might have been tempted to build some skis under it an run her down that frozen river....but thats just me....

I don't understand... there are no downriggers or rod holders? Is there a livewell? Is there a rod locker? It doesn't look like most fishing boats I am familiar with?

JL8Jeff said:

Getting closer to running it for the first time, but this past weekend was way too windy and the river came up 5' so there was a lot of debris floating down from the winter.

Click to expand...

Just keep it below half throttle. That should keep you under a 1000 MPH and you'll be fine.

I'd still consider belts. It isn't the speed that hurts but the sudden stop when you find bars and other dumb stuff. Lots of jet guys have eaten consoles or went over the front end arse over tear kettle in small outboard jets.

To fish I'd ditch the racing seats and get some decent Tempress high backs with 3/4" posts. That's what I did, just move the seats to where you are fishing from. Mount a post socket in the front and frame a post socket on the intake with a partial dog box around the engine for the GIB's feet. A front trolling mount would be easy enough to fab on as well. Some antislip tape on the front would be good enough for me to fish it.

Finally got it out for a run today. The river was up quite a bit and there was some wind so it was really just a shakedown run to get a feeling for the boat. Wow, this thing is sensitive with the steering and has a really different feeling because of the length and jet set up. It takes a bit of effort to hold it straight but once you get the feel for it you can really zip along. And it turns so fast it's amazing. I think I made about a 10th of a turn on the wheel and I did a 180 instantly! I can't wait to take it out again but I need to let the river come down 3 to 5 feet to make it a little safer for the learning curve. I also need to move the gas pedal back, I have short legs and can barely get half throttle which was plenty for today.

I've had the boat out the last 3 weekends now and did some tuning, cleaned up almost all of the electrical connections and it seems to be running a lot better. I'm still getting used to the feel of it but it really gets up to speed quickly and easily. I did move the gas pedal forward so I can get it to the floor now. One thing I did notice, the area that looks like a "windshield" actually works more like a bug deflector and you better be wearing glasses or sunglasses! I still need to get pictures of it in the water, I forgot to take my camera again on Sunday when I took it out.