jet drive for small river fishing

[kenstl17]

I am looking for a small river boat, 14-16 ft welded jon style, that has an inboard jet. Most on the market are larger/longer boats and the smaller boats, use outboard jet drives.

Has anyone built a jet drive fishing boat with the use of a motor from a
sea-doo or jet ski motor?

OR

Has anyone taken an older mercury sport jet 90-125 (made from 92-95), and customized a welded jon or modified v?

thanks

[Richard Petersen]

Enough of a deep V is the problem in that size boat- unless you can afford $ 7-10,000 for a used jet sprint boat. They are not called VACUMS for nothing.

[CVM]

Have a look at the jet boat web sites in New Zealand,(www.nzjba.org) true river boating was pioneered here. I have a 15' Hamilton (www.hamjet.co.nz)152 hull with a 302 ford driving a 3 stage 773 Hamilton pump, it will go anywhere you have 2" of water or more, can pay anything from a few thousand to fifty thousand for a boat. Don't waste your time with PWC jet drives as they are far to small to push a 15' boat. Mercury Sport jets are gaining favor as they are light and a shite load easier to push off the rocks than a boat like mine. Anything around a 16deg dead-rise at the transom gives good shallow water capabilities but may pound a little in big water.
I did some boating in a little Hamilton 131 (14') with a 120 sport jet a few years back and it went great, only needed half a bucket of water to get up and going and could plane on a wet rock, I asume a 90 would be great also.
Rip into it you'll love it.

[Richard Petersen]

Only needed a half bucket-- is that a hand prime or a joke?

[CVM]

Just a joke Richard.
Need about 8" - 12" to get going but will sustain plaining in 2"-4" depending on how many pies you have been eating.

Paul.

[Richard Petersen]

Are the jets still unhappy in a dock with muck 12" to 18" below?

[CVM]

If I understand you correctly the muck you speak of would get stirred up but won’t cause a problem. We run sand traps which catch all the particles which would normally settle out in engine water galleries and are difficult to flush out.
The water jet isn’t well understood there are a lot of misconceptions even by experienced boaters and boat builders.
Weed is the biggest problem as it is with props, heavy weed can and will block an intake but generally once you shut down it self clears. On the odd occasion when you cant get a clear spot to start off in then that’s a problem and I have experienced this once and I have owned a Jet boat for 20 years and that was because the lead boat chickened out and slowed down, if we stayed on the plane we should have been O.K. Maybe. Remember when your on the plane the intake only draws water from 1" below the hull.
One thing to consider is that due to the braded nature of our rivers in “Gods Own” intake screens will run ¼” wide bars with a ½” gap between them to reduce the size of shingle going through the impellor’s. All the sport jet systems I have been involved with here have had aftermarket screens with the aforementioned geometry, performance isn’t noticeably affected if at all.

Paul

[Richard Petersen]

I never power in weeds. Rock or logs kills bottoms on any boat. Thanks, Rich

[CVM]

I don’t think we are comparing apples here, the keel plate on my current boat is ½” and the side bottoms and front panels are around ¼” thick, it takes a severe hit to tear ¼” 6061 T6 Aluminum in a 15’ boat. Never had a problem with logs but certainly put a few dents in on rocks, anything sized like a football at 30mph will give you a hurry up but no hole. Most blokes would agree there is no fun in riding a bike around a car park, you have to get into it and give it a go.

[Richard Petersen]

Now I know how " Flat Rock Weed Bed " got it's name. :) Cheers.

[TJP]

Not sure if this will find you as it is an old thread.

I use a Hamilton J52 with a Ford 302 Cleveland and two stage 750 jet unit for waterskiing. I am looking to get more pull out of the water. The engine pulls 4000 rpm at WOT and does about 42 knots. What is my best option. I like jet drives for their versatility but would just want a little more shove for skiiing.

Would appreciate a reply.

Cheers

[akscott]

I have a modified Weldcraft 12' boat that I put a Seadoo 720cc motor and an old berkeley 6JA jet in. It's seriously well made welded aluminum boat
but still pretty light.

It's a blast to run, runs very very shallow, and tops out at approx 25-28mph.
With a passenger and extra gear it feels overworked, and performance definitely drops. (The old 6JA jet is likely holding me back; was told they were designed for 35-75hp motors)

I have had that boat in places I doubt very few jet boats could go. I have pushed it over gravel/sand bars by myself and kept on going.

If I had it to do over, I may have looked into trying to fit a merc sportjet 2.3L in there with a different jet unit. Would probably get 35-40 mph out of it and alot more power out of the hole. Would make it a fun little ski boat as well.

[stonebreaker]

Well, Phantom has a 17' inboard jet, and they use a tunnel intake to make it run in VERY shallow water. http://phantomjetboat.com/sportsman-xrt.htm#17standard

Here's a dealer's site that sells the boat, and has lots of good info and pictures: http://www.compeaus.com/sj_gallery.html

Check out the last tv commercial on this page: http://www.compeaus.com/tv_vids.html

[ghostjet]

im building 16 ft welded aluminium jet boats that are fast lite and go in very little water. if you would like some pics and more info you can reach me at sltransmt@blackfoot.net

[ghostjet]

new email is mjbinc62@netzero.com. these boats that i build are 63 hp and run 34 mph on a 16 ft welded aluminium hull.

[puk91099]

I drove in this 16 ft jet boat its fast and turns like its on rails and im ordering 1 next week from this guy in montana. If anyones interested his names bill and heres his # 1406 677 4242.

[jbmboats]

we are building a small welded aluminum jet boat and have great hunting and fishing fun with them. they have 2cyl 2 strokes with 73hp and we are working on a 4 stroke . should have one up and running by mid summer of 2008.you can reach us at jbmboats@gmail.com

[jbmboats]

this is our new boat,it runs in just 2 in of water. see it at www.jetboatsofmontana.com

[homebuilt]

I had an idea to build a landing craft boat to haul my 800cc side by side polaris rzr. Does anyone think you could transfer the rotation from the wheels to drive a jet ?

[stonebreaker]

probably, but it would be extremely inefficient. You'd have to rig up some kind of steering from the ATV seat, or else a throttle linkage from the boat's cockpit.

One idea might be to install a power take-off. Some small garden tractors have a power take-off in the transfer case to run things like roto-tillers and such, maybe you could adapt one to your atv.

[homebuilt]

I was`nt really concerned with the steering part of it yet. More so how to get the proper gear ratio from the tires to the jet drive.