L.M. , where do you boat? You mentioned a lake......

I am interested in hearing how a jet boat would do in the salt water and in
the bay or heavier waters... any ideas? Any other negatives or positives
you can tell me about the jet boat option versus the standard cuddy or
bow-rider?
"L. M. Rappaport" wrote in message
...
On 22 Jul 2003 23:18:24 -0700, (Frank and Ronnie
Maier) wrote (with possible editing):

whitespc1 wrote:

I am interested in a powerboat for the family. This will be used
for
running around the Chesapeake bay in Maryland, skiing, tubing, and
day
trips.
...snip...
Havre de Grace

A coupla comments, just FYI.

Good points of jetboats are that they are shallow draft and pretty
dependable. OTOH, they get bad gas mileage. They are easily yanked
around by skiers boarders, tubes, etc. They're not very roomy.

Our family of four decided that an open bow tournament skiboat was the
best decision for us in circumstances similar to yours. You can buy a
decent used skiboat for the price of a new jetboat. They ain't real
good in rough water; but you probably ain't out doing family
watersports when things are rough.

My $.02,

Frank

FWLIW, I went through the same exercise and ended up with an 18.5'
SeaDoo by Bombardier. It is also an open bow boat, quite broad in
beam, with a hull which seems to be perhaps a bit better optimized for
a jet boat. Our first day out on a lake we ended up coming back to
dock into relatively heavy water, 4' waves with wind-driven rain. It
handled remarkably well. The power plant is a 200 hp 2 cycle Merc,
not what I would have picked, but the 40 gallon gas and 2 gallon oil
tanks give us plenty of range.

--
Larry