lakelover
Rear Admiral
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2003
- Messages
- 4,386
Hello folks, back now from a couple weeks of intense use on the water with the Permanent Vacation! I can't believe how much fun that little boat is. That's FUN with a capital F! I thought I'd give a little evaluation.
Performance with the Johnson 50 is amazing. With just me in it, it jumps onto plane & flies and is a great ride with two. I'm surprised and pleased what a smooth ride it is even in relatively rough water for my lake. That would be 1-1/2 to 2' + waves. The ride is way smoother and quieter than the 1965 14' Glastron SkiFlite my father had when I was growing up.
It still has the power to handle great & plane out quickly with 4 passengers too, although in the wind, the rear passengers get a little wet from the wind blowing the splash in. With the mostly flat hull in the stern half, it's very stable.
I'm running a 12x17 prop and that has mostly tamed the over-revving I was having with the 12-1/2x15. Trimmed all the way in, it will top out at about 5000 rpm and will hit the max of 5500 trimmed out. My top GPS speed on my test run was 36 mph. There's also great & easy cruising anywhere from 2500-3500 rpm.
One thing I need to design & improve is stowage space. I need to mount something where I can throw in my binoculars for easy access or quickly drop in my sunglasses etc. I have a few ideas. For anyone renovating a Jet Star, I'd recommend making sure you put enough room between the front & rear seats to keep them from rubbing together with people in the back. I was pretty sure I had left enough space to avoid that, but there is more give to the Wise seats than I anticipated. Since I made the rear support board extra wide, I could tweak that by moving the rear seats back a couple more inches, but I don't think I'll bother as usually just myself and one other person are aboard.
Not too many classic boats on my lake so it turns lots of heads and gets lots of friendly waves. Anyway, my wife shot some pics and a video of me enjoying the rewards of all the work...definitely worth it!! Thanks for looking!
Performance with the Johnson 50 is amazing. With just me in it, it jumps onto plane & flies and is a great ride with two. I'm surprised and pleased what a smooth ride it is even in relatively rough water for my lake. That would be 1-1/2 to 2' + waves. The ride is way smoother and quieter than the 1965 14' Glastron SkiFlite my father had when I was growing up.
It still has the power to handle great & plane out quickly with 4 passengers too, although in the wind, the rear passengers get a little wet from the wind blowing the splash in. With the mostly flat hull in the stern half, it's very stable.
I'm running a 12x17 prop and that has mostly tamed the over-revving I was having with the 12-1/2x15. Trimmed all the way in, it will top out at about 5000 rpm and will hit the max of 5500 trimmed out. My top GPS speed on my test run was 36 mph. There's also great & easy cruising anywhere from 2500-3500 rpm.
One thing I need to design & improve is stowage space. I need to mount something where I can throw in my binoculars for easy access or quickly drop in my sunglasses etc. I have a few ideas. For anyone renovating a Jet Star, I'd recommend making sure you put enough room between the front & rear seats to keep them from rubbing together with people in the back. I was pretty sure I had left enough space to avoid that, but there is more give to the Wise seats than I anticipated. Since I made the rear support board extra wide, I could tweak that by moving the rear seats back a couple more inches, but I don't think I'll bother as usually just myself and one other person are aboard.
Not too many classic boats on my lake so it turns lots of heads and gets lots of friendly waves. Anyway, my wife shot some pics and a video of me enjoying the rewards of all the work...definitely worth it!! Thanks for looking!
CLICK ON PICTURE!! Enjoy a great video.
