Jetboat Power Question

[BoatsontheBrain33]

I live in the Northwest and Jet-boating is popular with aluminum jet-boats with hamilton and american turbine jet pumps all powered by various engine makers such as ford chevy, etc. There seems to be a huge market for boats that run fast and shallow with big-time durability, but from everything I've read, the systems found in those boats are both extremely inefficient and hard to maintain, especially if you suck something up into the pump. Not to mention the price tag on those boats seems to exceed comparable boats with similar options excluding propulsion.

My question is, why doesn't someone put a pair of yamaha or sea-do pwc engines into one of these river runner boats. They're cheaper, they run shallow, and they're fast. They also appear to be more efficient. This may be a stupid question but it seems like an untapped market for yamaha, or bombardier, who already have twin engine boat models aimed at recreation.

All Ears.

 

[mthieme]

Re: Jetboat Power Question

Welcome aboard.
I'm on the Chesapeake and have never seen an aluminum jet boat.
The two kinds of jet boats I see are the newer yamahas or older big block setups typically with a Berkeley outdrive. The market is not huge here and the latter can be had fairly cheap.
I don't think they are any harder to maintain than any other boat. They might be easier as accessibility is easier at least in the case of the latter.

There is a handful of boat manufacturers that have made 14'ish jet boats which typically had a Mercury O/B powerhead...Boston Whaler Jazz, Sea Rayder, etc. I don't see a lot of these around, I assume they were not very popular (although I'd love to have a 16' Sea Rayder)

I run hyhdroplanes and have contemplated putting this type of propulsion in one just to try.