Have you ever owned a boat that scared you?

[Formula Jr]

My brother and I had a long conversation on the phone a while back as to whether we have owned a boat that ever scared us to run at WOT.

Both of us came to the conclusion that we have never really ever run that boat. It may take some time to get use to one, but eventually, its all WOT all the time. The boat never has some wicked place at WOT that can not be known or become familiar.

In the motorcycle world, its the complete opposite. I can ride any of the sportbikes 600CC and up made from 1984 on, and scare the hell out of myself.
You can get use to 100 MPH on a motorcycle, but some of these, you are doing that at 1/2 throttle. The other half of the throttle, the mystery and the scary interesting part is there, and doesn't cost that much.

For boats, it seems, to get to that same sense of mystery of the Full Throttle, you need tens of thousands of dollars, 100's of thousands of dollars, or even possibly millions of dollars, to be in a boat that you do not dare push to WOT.

I need a seriously scary ride in a boat again.

[Cuda]

Checkmate Mx14.

[gcarter]

Checkmate Mx14.
I second that.....I've run beside it and you can get scared for a LOT less.:eek!:

[Carl C]

My Hydrostream Vegas XT was downright dangerous at top speed. It had dual cable steering and foot throttle, the standard safety measures for 1985 but if that steering had failed at top end (mid 80s) it would have been disastrous. The steering torque with the motor jacked up was unreal. A sudden loss of power at top end would also have most likely caused a crash. You cannot chop the throttle on an aired out mod-VP hull, it'll start rocking on the "sponsons" until it rolls. One time I heard a bang by the motor, modified 200 OB, but didn't see anything wrong. It turned out that both upper motor mount bolts had snapped and the only thing keeping the motor from ripping off the boat was the shift shaft. And I was running 85 mph like that!:eek!::eek!: What a death trap. Then I bought my 22C in 2005 and I feel so much safer now, even aired out at 75+ mph. Yeah, that boat was scary. It was scary because it was dangerous due to it's age.:shocking:

[Morgan's Cloud]

I lived happily and peacefully with my St Tropez for 17 years .. Now that the resto and re-power are completed the way it runs is ... 'concerning' for lack of a better word.
I hope it's just a prop issue , but I may end up needing to put a D/P unit on it to settle it down.
Any WOT runs have to be carefully done in dead calm conditions and terrible trim settings.
I think I could use the word 'scary' now . (seriously)

[roadtrip se]

Besides tearing something up every ten minutes, this thing would reach up and swat you just for grins any time it liked, and for no reason.

110 was possible, but insane. Try this and find out what it was like to test the theory of running out of hull. It was kind of like being up on an unbroken stallion with no saddle and he could head for the barn any time or just flip you off for giggles. Man, I hated that boat.

Funny thing, I see it once in awhile on Lake Cumberland and the guy who has it, has offerred to sell it back to me real cheap... Umm, no thanks, you have fun, ya hear, nice boat.

[DonziFreak]

when i was younger and working with my father, there was a man in ft. lauderdale who built a CC cat from scratch and intended to start producing them......we installed a bunch of electronics on it and had to do a sea-trial to make sure everything worked, well, the boat idled good.....but once he got up on plane, at about 25 mph the boat would just start lurching violently from left to right......it was horrible, almost threw me overboard.......since then i've only been on one other cat, a 21 skater, and go figure, it almost rolled on my side.......

[fegettes]

In 1983 I acquired a protype Youngblood. It was one of seven made for an outboard with a low profile Southwind hull. The boat weighed about 400 lbs., and the Johnson 235 HP I think weighed about 400 lbs.. This was a wild ride. The boat would jump out of the water. At 70, which was fast back then, it was almost floating in air and the chine walk was incredibly terrible even with push-pull steering. I used one hand to steer with and the other hand never left the throttle. And the moments I would hit 75 I think I can honestly say I no longer had control of the boat. I certainly could not drive it into the wind. Yes, there were a couple of occasions where I scared myself with this boat. Now that I am older, I look back and think of how dangerous it was.

[blue-z]

It scared me before I repaired the gimbal housing with the worn rudder shaft. After that it was not even initmidating!!

[glashole]

the last time I had my boat in the shop it was scary.............:)

[TBroccoli]

I am usually a bit scared riding as a passenger of any boat. I just have the thought going through my head that the drived is not as experienced as he thinks.

[superhatz]

My '67 16 Donzi was scary..........no power steering and no trim.......the steering was very hard and if you let go of the wheel (by mistake) at full throttle it would whip to one side.......:eek!:

Almost threw me out of the boat......

[LKSD]

We have done a few blower & big power boats under 30' that have been an absolute handfull that make you very nervous.. Also I have had some tunnels (cats) that make you want to piss your pants too.. But There are many boats that I would agree you can easily get used to running wot, especially some good name & well built ones.. :) Jamie / lakeside


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[yeller]

I need a seriously scary ride in a boat again.C'mon up. You can take the wheel of mine. I'll stay on shore if you don't mind. :wink:

[BigGrizzly]

I am always scared at WFO in in fast boats, anything can happen! Just like motorcycles, which I have raced for 30 years, if you think you are in control it will bite you real hard. Speed is relative to the unit in question. Remember at high speed weather, it be land or water, you run out of relestate in a hurry. At 80 in a boat a submerged log can cause a real problem. On land a 2X4 at 120 in a care or motorcycle can be a nightmare or worse. I have done triple digits in all the above.

[f_inscreenname]

We have had a few home built rides as a kid that it's wounder we were not killed in. If we couldn't make it chine walk we felt we failed.
Now a days my Nova is not nearly as fast but the day I was at WOT and my steering cable broke was no fun. From 50+mph to a stop in about 10 feet as the boat basically spun out. I still cant figure why it didn't flip and/or barrel roll.
After that I thanked the marine gods and went home for a couple weekends.