Whaler Sport Jet comments

[crownline_guy]

I'm looking to pick up an old whaler sport jet to do some island to mainland back and forth. Does anyone have experience with this boat and it's durability. I know the regular whalers are like tanks but these have built in jet propulsion like a jet ski and are likely very different in handling and ride.

Thoughts please from current or previous owners.

Please refrain from the editorials (you know who you are);)

[Dave R]

Is it the one for sale in Raymond? Just curious. I drive by it all the time and think it looks cool.

[MikeF-NH]

did some quick googling on that boat for you and found lots of negatives. You might want to google around abit before taking the plundge. Here are a couple that I read:

"Memebers of my family had one, a avid whaler fanatic (has owned nothing but whalers). He about had a major mental breakdown in sticking up for this (15' rage jet boat)boat and the factory before giving in and relizing the boat was never going to work as expected. It has a design flaw (acknowledge by a factory tech). The motors were overheating and had difficulting getting on plane. There is a reason this whaler resale is so low and they were dropped after a year or two.

He got credit towards (not much mind you) dauntlass with a new type of motor called optimax. Didn't fish for a year in his own boat due to optimax problems.

He now owns a 18 dautlass with a honda motor and a honda kicker.

Not everything "whaler" has a clean reputation. I recommend you look at a different boat."

AND
"tubing and skiing great. But fishing, or even docking were a nightmare. Once you cut power to a jet, you essentially have no steering (rudder). So you're either under significant thrust or floating - no in between. "

[hig]

"tubing and skiing great. But fishing, or even docking were a nightmare. Once you cut power to a jet, you essentially have no steering (rudder). So you're either under significant thrust or floating - no in between. "

Jet drives handle differently and take some practice to get the hang of. That could be considered a downside I suppose. They have other advantages though.

Don't know anything about this Whaler or its engine, but modern jets from Yamaha or Seadoo are a good option for the lake.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

[codeman671]

I have owned 3 of the Whaler rage jet boats,
2 were 115hp omc powered and one with 175 merc. They are all prone to overheating problems.

The merc powered boat ran 50+ and was a blast to drive. I found that idling at a dock for a short period of time would cause it to overheat, buy once moving with a steady flow of water all was good.

The boat was completely gone through and even with the thermostat removed it would still heat up.

Adding sport tabs to them is highly recommended to keep them from porpoising.