"Roger Long" wrote in
:

She's a water jet boat


Wow! Where you YOU when Sea Ray was designing my Sea Rayder jetboat!
Those fins could have kept it from spinning around when you pulled the
power. Sea Ray had no answer for this dangerous phenomenon...at least
one they'd admit to, of course.

If you pulled the power off the Sea Rayder F16XR2's 175hp Sport Jet,
with just the right-hand driver in the seat, the boat did a very
dangerous port turn, quite violently with no control, of course, as
there was no thrust.

I corrected the problem with 65# of sand bags stuffed up under the port
gunwale to correct the hull trim. Trimmed out for the single passenger,
she'd track straight and true with no power. I figured this was safer
than turning uncontrollably to port into someone's dock...or worse yet,
their yacht!

A nice secondary phenomenon I certainly enjoyed was that when a bikini-
clad honey came aboard that wanted to go to the beach, after my "trim
installation", to keep the boat in balance, she sat in the CENTER seat,
under my left arm for stability and safety.....instead of WAY OVER THERE
in the port rear seat! It was a much nicer arrangement, even without
the safety aspect...(c; Lightly rubbing her ear seemed to make the boat
faster. No theory on why....

Another 90# of sandbag ballast was installed in the very tip of the bow,
held in place with a 2x6 beam inside the forward lazerette seat. This
"damper" was very successful at stopping this light craft from jumping
up and down every time it hit a ripple, much less a wave. It also did a
wonderful job helping the boat up on plane at much lower speeds and
power as the passengers always sat in the rear seats underway with the
stuff, engine, etc., in the trunk.

Other exact-same Sea Rayders were always amazed that I could jump out of
the water and pass them equally loaded. I told the young ones it was a
special high performance tuning computer that turned my 175 into a Black
Max super engine. It wasn't....it was SANDBAGS...(c;

Sure wish I had thought about adding some stabilizing fins when I had
it. Sure wish the idiots at SEA RAY had thought about it!

Thanks for the information. The little jetboat was fine as long as you
had THRUST. It was helpless without it....and a bit
dangerous.....especially when the 3/8" fuel supply hose fell off the
5/16" hose barb, dropping the open hose into the bilge because the 3"
diameter hose clamps did nothing to stop it....flooding the hull with
enough gas that the engine INSIDE this explosive mixture would RUN on
these fumes...roughly. My phone call to Sea Ray wasn't very pleasant
and unsuitable for repeating in mixed company.

Nothing sparked before I figured out what had happened. We needn't
discuss where I pumped out the flooded bilge. THE BILGE PUMP DIDN'T
MAKE IT EXPLODE, which amazed me. Rule uses mercury
switches...explosion proof.

Sea Ray....built to the highest AYBC standards....sure....