KY JetJon Project

[bnt5]

Tested out the Ky jet jon today....named her the "Jet-I" 8). Put it in the water and everything looked fine, tried starting the engine and it would not stay running, took me about 10 tries on the starter to figure out my choke cable was stuck open..unchoked and it fired up like a champ. Reverse doesn't work very good, I might need to adjust the reverse bucket up a little. It goes backwards, just at a snails pace. Once out in the water, I give it a little gas and MAN! it popped up on plane and scooted across the water...holy crap, that was cool. I get a little braver and give it about 3/4 throttle and it jumps up and runs very fast for about 300 yards, I take it back to the ramp to make sure everything is still sealed up and notice I am taking on water at an alarming rate...uh-oh. I hurry up and back the trailer into the water and push the boat back on, pull the boat out and proceed to drain about 15 gallons of water out of the hull. The culprit turned out to be uncured caulking! The water pressure pulled out the caulk in the front spoon area. This is geocel pro flex caulking that had been curing for 2 weeks! and it was still wet inside...what the heck???!! So now I have to dig out the uncured caulking and fill the voids with something that will setup quick and strong on top of the old caulking and run more carriage bolts through the area to secure. Everything else held up beautifully, just had two spots of thick caulking that failed......miserably.

I did notice that my prop was slipping a few times, it didn't act like cavitation, since I was on smooth water, it was during acceleration it would slip then catch and no problems after that ran great with no cavitation whatsoever. I did have the impeller refinished by a local guy and I am wondering if he goofed it up a little since when I got it back it was rubbing the wear ring a little. Will post video and pics later on today.

 

[bnt5]

Been running the KY Jet Jon for a awhile now and I must say, these boats are definitely fun! Rivers are where these boats shine the most, add a little chop on the water and it cavitates like crazy due to the flat bottom hull. I was told by someone on here that these little boats garner a lot of attention at the ramp...it's true, I can't go anywhere without people stopping and asking questions.

The interior of the boat is not complete, I still need carpet over the decks and electronics ran. With a 16' hull and a Kawasaki 750cc engine with stock impeller I gps'd the speed at 35mph. With the addition of two kids and the wife we gps'd at 32 mph. I can run safely in 4 inches of water on plane and slide across shoals in 2 inches of water without touching bottom, very unique feeling when the boat rises up following bottom contour! Rapids and riffles are no problem however there is some cavitation due to the amount of air entrapped in the white water sections. Over all I am very pleased with the end result and will consider building another with a better hull design to cut back on chop cavitation, as this boat really is only good for flat water and small rivers.

Check out the small vid I made running a local river in KY

https://youtu.be/HTS7qb218lw

 

[Nlawson0017]

where on the licking was that. i aslo run the licking from mouth of ohio to famouth.

-Nate

 

[Nlawson0017]

kinda looks like down around whites rd?

-Nate

 

[bnt5]

That was taken below cave run lake in morehead KY. I live in northern ky and have fished the licking near Falmouth on the south fork, caught a few smallies there. Too far of a drive to go down there all the time, however with the new jet john I might have to make a trip that way.