135 hp

zenubio · Newbie Joined: 03 Sep 2005 Posts: 22 City: Savage

I am considering buying a boat with a wakeboard tower, 21 pitch 5 prong stainless steel prop, and 135 hp inboard/outboard. I weigh about 190. I've boarded behind a 170hp but it was an older boat and didn't have the tower. Am I not going to have enough power to board well with a 135hp motor? Do I need 240hp? I have some 225 lbs friends that couldn't get behind my 170hp, but I'm not sure how much of that was skill vs weight.

jjaszkow · Posted: Nov 29, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject:

I weight pretty close to you and can get up and ride without a problem behind a 130hp boat. I think a lot of it has to do with learning how to get up, so I suspect with practice , your 225lb friend would have no problem getting up behind your 170hp boat.

Now having gone through a similar process to what you are going though, while I like our boat very much, if I had to do it over again I would be looking at used DD or Vdrive boats rather than new I/O boats. Just my 2 cents.

zenubio · Newbie Joined: 03 Sep 2005 Posts: 22 City: Savage

DD or Vdrive? I'm assuming that's where the prop is underneath the boat as opposed to behind it? Do you wish you had more power though? Is it holding you back on tricks? I don't think I'll have a problem getting up, I just don't want to be limited because of horsepower.

bmartin · Addict Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 794

Yes v-drive and d-drives are where the prop is under the boat.

I learned on a 135HP and it would pull anybody up weight wise. I had a 15p prop on my old 135HP boat and can't imagine getting out of the hole with a 21p.

Everything else being equal (same hull), the only meaningful wakeboard advantage you get with more HP is the ability to add more ballast which in turn can make your wake bigger and with some hulls much bigger. Yeah you can get up faster with more HP but who cares if it takes you 5 seconds or 10 seconds to get up to riding speed.

Most people that wakeboard once a week or more, including myself, will trade up to a boat that will throw a better wake eventually which usually means a v-drive with 300HP with 1500+lbs of ballast. But if you want something to cruise around in and learn the basics of wakeboarding, most 135HP I/O are fine.

zenubio · Newbie Joined: 03 Sep 2005 Posts: 22 City: Savage

What do you think about this boat?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=011&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=320051851974&rd=1,1

Antoddio · Newbie Joined: 24 Jun 2006 Posts: 22 City: Milwaukee

Why not go for the 4.3L 190 HP? Those come in a lot of IO's, and would probably be worth it. I imagine a 135 would struggle with more that 3-4 people in the boat.

HHI Dave · Posted: Nov 30, 2006 9:51 am Post subject:

bmartin · Addict Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 794

zenubio,

If everything is legit, that looks like a good deal for $10K. For any wakespecific boat, you will have to spend 3-5X that for a one year old boat or get a 15-25 y.o. boat. I think the main thing you have to ask, do you see yourself being a 'core' type of wakeboarder like a lot of the people who post around here or someone who likes to recreate on the water and occasionally go wakeboarding. If the latter, this would be a good choice. If you see yourself getting addicted to wakeboarding, you would probably be better off going straight to a v-drive and skip the I/O 4 cyl step. You can find decent 4-8 y.o. wakeboats for $20-25K.

waveboy9813 · Criminal Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 64

On my good old crownie with 3.0 135HP we could have 7 people in the boat and still pull 2 wakeboarders. Just make sure you put the fat asses up front. If you dont do that you will never get on plane. But ya with 7 people that boat threw up a pretty good wake with out fac sacks. Also think about getting a stainless steel prop. It really helps.

waveboy9813 · Criminal Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 64

Also my buddy who weights 235 got up behind the crownie. Its just that if the people dont know how to board they have to work harder to get up. With vdrive or dd they boat literally pulls them out of the water.

jjaszkow · Posted: Dec 01, 2006 7:09 am Post subject:

Zenubio,
We've had 5 people in my boat, probably averaging about 200lbs / person and had no problem pulling me nor getting on plane. As waveboy mentions, it's harder for people who have never done it before to get up behind my boat, but most people were able to. This is with the stock prop, which I believe is a 19p 3 blade. I am looking at going to a 4 blade prop or possibly 17p to improve holeshot, which should help this issue. I will lose a bit of top speed, but that isn't a major concern to me.

I don't think the boat and low horsepower is holding me back on tricks. If anything, the wake itself is, but I think it is mostly lack of skill on my part. Gotta spend more time at it Laughing

.

Looks like a good price for that boat. As bmartin mentions, if you are buying it for a single purpose (wakeboarding), it's probably not the best choice, but it looks like a great general purpose / recreational boat.

HHI_dave ... hindsight is 20/20 eh? When we got our boat, I wasn't even considering wakeboarding, and now I am saving my pennies for an X-1 or VTX.

HHI Dave · Posted: Dec 01, 2006 2:01 pm Post subject:

biglouie · Outlaw Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 135

I weigh 220 and my 40Hp Mercury on my 16 foot fishing boat pulls me up pretty easily. Lot lighter boat than you are talking about though.

revelation · Outlaw Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 213 City: Annapolis

I have a 18' I/O with the 135hp mercruiser. It pulls me and all of my friends up easily when most of the weight is in the front of the boat. One of the first purchases before any wakeboarding should be a hydrofoil. They do wonders.

HHI Dave · Posted: Dec 24, 2006 9:00 am Post subject:

jlaws · Addict Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 832 City: NC

wow my friends have a boat with 85hp and they are 170 lbs and they have no trouble...

burntorange77 · Soul Rider Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 321 City: Kingwood

HHI Dave,
I had to take the hydrofoil off of my boat cause it absoluely killed my already small wake.

HHI Dave · Posted: Jan 02, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject:

burntorange77, I haven't run the boat with the hydrofoil installed yet. I'm also looking at a 600 lb fat sac for the bow. I was thinking that with the motor trimmed up and some weight in the front I could generate a pretty decent wake. My new prop should be here in the next couple of days. We'll see.