Re: Boat shopping questions
Measure any boat you want to put into the garage including the outdrive and trailer winch even if it has a folding tongue. You'd be surprised at how the inches add up.<br /><br />Agree on OB rather than I/O. Having had ONE I/O will not have another.<br /><br />135 is plenty on an 18ft boat with 3 or 4 people on the excursion. We had an 18ft trihull, very heavy, bow rider, 125 Johnson and 4 children and we all would make a day of it. Pulling doubles most of the time on 2 skis, usually 1 on slalom.<br /><br />Had one general purpose prop which was SS and had a 17" pitch. As I recall the lower unit gear ratio was 2:1 (makes a difference when talking about prop pitch). <br /><br />Did well on hole with a skiier plus top end was 39 when lightly loaded. Didn't need to fool around with changing props with this setup. But nowadays, you can get ported props which have holes drilled in the side which allow you to run a higher pitch for top end and act like a lower pitch when you are trying to get out of the hole.<br /><br />Deep Vees ride smooth and after you get pounded a few times you will see why they are popular, or just get one and start out right.<br /><br />Most boats wind up stern (rear) heavy (especially I/O's) and this hurts your getting up on skiis (hole shot). You may consider adding trim tabs to the transom to help with lift.<br /><br />One final point. If you have rear seats and choose an I/O then I would go with the higher hp engines or possibly trim tabs would help. I had a light weight, aluminum , for the length of 18' (Starcraft brand), I/O with a 120 hp Mercruiser and I couldn't get out of the hole if both rear seats were occupied by adults.....15 more hp wouldn't have made any appreciable difference.<br /><br />HTH. Good luck and enjoy your boat......they're never big enough on the water and always too big on the land. My opinion.<br /><br />Mark<br /><br />Don't forget your tow vehicle. Need a big one for a big boat unless you keep in moored.
