Re: My new Yamaha 90HP 4 stroke is making a creaking noise...
I had my buddy hang over the stern when I revved it up (yes, he almost fell over the side...). He said that the noise was coming from the motor itself. By the sound, he guessed that it was happening when the motor leaned into the hydraulic lift when the torque made it go forward.
By the way, the boat is a 2008 1860 Blazer Bay. It is an 18' 6" bay boat that we got to fish inshore bass in Southern California. Here are a couple pics.
Other than the creaking noise, the boat is awesome.
We made some modifications to the standard options package, like deck level lighting (to help when we fish at night) and an oversized bow rail because we often fish boiler rocks in less than calm conditions. I was doubtful about getting the boat with a 90 horse (I thought that we'd need at least a 115, but it's plenty fast (cruises at around 35 MPH). The boat is very stable and comes with a 50 gallon fuel tank so range is not an issue when fishing the offshore islands (up to 60 miles from the dock).
We went with the 80 lb thrust Minn Kota Riptide with auto pilot. I can't say enough about the auto pilot feature... The other day, we were fishing a bay in 20 to 25 MPH wind and the thing held us on a spot with almost no adjustments necessary. We also got the Humminbird plotter / fish finder combo with the side imaging sonar. We are still getting the hang of using it, but so far I am very impressed with the way the side imaging sonar works. We fished a wreck in 75 feet of water and were able to clearly make out every detail of the wreck and were able to locate fish that were suspended above it. This feature really cuts down on driving around in circles and trying to find a spot on the up and down meter.
