boston whaler 15 rage

[lillypad333]

hello just wondering if anyone has some thoughts on the above mentioned boat
would be used in fresh water for skiing and tubing for my 10 yr old.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

whaler is one of the best.

Buying a boat

1st you need to decide what you want to use it for, fishing, cruising, or water sports.

2nd how many people adults, children you want on board of the average outing.

3rd outboard, inboard-outboard, or inboard power plant.

4th Budget, what you want to pay, and what you are willing to pay, when you find
Exactly what you want.

You can hire a marine surveyor, to inspect the boat, or you can do it yourself.

You are mainly looking for soft spots in the deck, transom, cracks, all signs of a rotten, under frame.

The motor should be clean, no spots where the paint is discolored, or pealing from heat, having run hot. Compression should be atleast 100psi, and within 10% of each other,
Spark on all cylinders, good pee stream, check lower unit for water in oil.

The overall condition of the boat will tell you a lot, as to how it has been maintained.

A 30 year old boat motor combo, may be in better condition, than a 3 year old

 

[arboldt]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

You might want to also check out the forums at jetboat14.com and jetboating.net. We, too, have a small jetboat, although a different brand (sea Ray for us).

Whaler is an excellent well-respected brand. The Rage was respected, too, although not well-represented on the jetboat groups. While the jets have many advantages, they also have disadvantages -- they're not as efficient as props, so your gas usage will be higher and hole-shot performance probably not as good. Once at plane, though, performance surpasses that of props IMHO. From what I've read, the Rage has larger engines than my Sea Rayder, so you're probably ok.

You've also got to realize that the only steering control you have is under power. At slow no-wake speeds, steering may be problematic.

Be sure to take a good sea test with you, your wife, and anyone else that may normally be in the boat, and test the hole-shot and other performance. Good friends of ours have a 16' SeaDoo, and their gas mileage and performance is much better than ours -- and they've got a bigger engine, too.

Don't get me wrong -- we really like our Sea Rayder. Still, if I knew back then what I know now, I probably would have gotten a different boat.

HTH

Al

 

[lillypad333]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

thanks for your help it is much appreciated
lillypad

 

[lillypad333]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

thank you for your response lillypad

 

[Mike Robinson]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

I didn't know they made a 15' outrage, do you mean the Montauk?

I used to work for a company that used the Outrage 190 for fishing charters (late 90's model).

One thing I didn't like about them was that the access to the bilge was through a plastic rectangular deck plate inside the botttom of the outboard well. This hatch cover was not very watertight and being that it was used for fishing, scales got into everything, including the bilge pump. If the pump got clogged you would have to open this hatch which would allow even greater amounts of sea water into a partially flooded bilge causing even more water to flood in over the transom! Not a very good design.

To combat this we installed a second pump so we could pump out the bilge with out having to open the cover.

I'm not sure, but I believe this shortcoming was corrected by moving the deck plate forward into the cockpit deck, (out of the outboard well) in later models.

 

[njlarry]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

Outrages are outboard powered, there were no 15 footers. Rages were all jet powered-14,15 and 18 feet. The 15 has a Dauntless type hull with lots a storage and nice seating unlike most whalers of that size. It had 115 OMC and 175 Merc engines with Tubro-jet drives. Lots of other builders used the same combos. I still have mine and love the build quality and low maintance. The cooling system is the only part that ever gave any trouble. Now that I'm using a prop boat I'm finding all the tree stumps in the river by "feel".

 

[Mike Robinson]

Re: boston whaler 15 rage

Thanks for clearing that up njlarry. I guess you can ignore my previous post lilypad. Sorry for the confusion.