I'm thinking of buying one mostly for use on Lake Austin, as a way to test how much of a boat person I am. Relatively low cost, versatile, and fun is what steered me to them, as well as a strong recommendation from a former employee. I know they quit making them - should this be a concern?

good boat, fast and fun a I/O with a small block is more reliable, but....

As a boat owner, let me be the first(surely of many) to tell you you will never see your money back, you will spend more maintaining, storing, and operating than you care to think about. That being said, a used boat is a dangerous thing. I spent 5K REPAIRING my boat the first year I owned it and I bought new.


But buy a boat, you will hate that you did it, you will be poorer, and some days sad. However you will be a sad poor person with a boat, which is empirically better than being sad and poor without a boat.

TSW said it well. But boats can be a blast if the hassle factor isn't too much.

I don't know much about SeaDoo boats, though I have owned a SeaDoo PWC. Is that fuel injected? I am not a fan of marine 2 stroke engines.

Anything built in the last decade is likely to be 4 stroke, though there are some 2 stroke direct injections out there still.

I love my 2 stroke outboard. Super easy to maintain and reliable as hell, and fast. It is smoky though.

Those jet boats look fun, but you may need a longer tongue on the trailer they give you with them. They are hard as hell to back up with a big tow vehicle, like a jetski trailer.

Got a funny story about that. I was at TCD once launching my boat, and my brother in law was holding the boat at one ramp, standing on the pier in between it and the second ramp. Protecting the ramps on the outside of each were two long rock groins about 50 yards long. A foreign couple (some euro accent) pulls up to the other ramp with a seadoo jet boat being towed by a trailblazer. The woman gets in the boat, and the guy tries to back down, but he's having a hell of a time backing it with the terrible visibility, so he gets out and opens the tailgate so he can see better. Well they back it down to the water, as I am parking my own tow vehicle and walking back. As I am coming up, I see a set of HUGE rolling waves coming across the bay from a distant loaded tanker that had come up the ship channel. Well, they hit the dike, and get funneled up between the rock groins and come surging up the ramp. my brother in law manages to control my boat from the dock, but the poor lady is getting slammed on that jet boat because it's still winched to the trailer, but even worse, the guy had to back WAY down with that trailblazer because of the idiotically short trailer tongue on the trailer, each of a series of about 6 huge waves funnels in and washies right up and around and INTO the back of their vehicle, upt to the back of the driver's seat. The interior got flooded pretty good, and they were lucky it didn't get dragged back down the ramp into the water, but he kept his foot on the brake at least...

I felt bad for them, but it was funny as hell to watch.

Get the twin engine one. Parents have a '98 or so Yamaha exciter. Thing is a blast, will outrun most of the low to mid level pwc's on the lake. Not much at all for skiing or tubeing though. YouTube how to submarine one, it's a pretty cool little trick.

It will probably burn fuel like a top fuel dragster. Every jet ski I've ever owned burned fuel faster than a V8 boat. Typically (at least they used to) the seadoo jet boats have two motors.

Yes, a jet is terribly inefficient even compared to a prop.

I hate two strokes. I tolerate them in chainsaws, trimmers and blowers because there are no good 4 stroke alternatives.

The ONLY advantage I see for 2 stroke is power for the weight/displacement. They burn more fuel, pollute more, and foul plugs unless they are injected.

Jet boats are poor for any serious towsports. Not because they can't pull a skiier, but because they don't track worth a damn.

Another advantage of 2 stroke: power on every compression cycle instead of every other. Lighter weight and more power, especially at higher RPMS.

They are noisy, less efficient, and smoky, however.

FWIW, I have often heard that the two best days in a boat owner's life are the day he buys his boat and the day he gets rid of it.

I built 3 of my own boats. I found that enjoyable as well.

MouthBQ - My Seadoo GTX PWC, with clean plugs and fresh gas, was great fun.

But there isn't a second that I think it was better than my Yamaha with a 4 stroke FI engine. That thing sounds and feels like a turbine.

quote:

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I hate two strokes. I tolerate them in chainsaws, trimmers and blowers because there are no good 4 stroke alternatives.

The ONLY advantage I see for 2 stroke is power for the weight/displacement. They burn more fuel, pollute more, and foul plugs unless they are injected.

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I love two strokes for their simplicity, sound, responsiveness, and power to weight ratio.

That being said, there is good four stroke alternatives in the trimmer market. I've got a four Stroke Honda trimmer that I bought at least 12 years ago and I've never done anything but change the oil. It still starts first pull every time. The torque is great too, because I don't have to wind it out all the time like you do a two stroke trimmer.


I haven't ridden ski's much in the last few years, like I did when I was growing up. I'm sure the new fourstrokes are more fuel efficient, but they've grown way too bloated for me. To me the most fun time period was the mid-90's when there was a lot of lightweight high powered, two stroke skis that were hard to balance. They were a blast because you could throw them around and shoot them out of the water. The stand ups were even better.

Yeah, the bigger jetskis are HEAVIER than my 15 foot skiff plus outboard.

we had a speedster for a while. it was fun to play around with, but i wouldn't want it as my only boat. we also had a pontoon boat at the time. it's really small, but also really fast. ours had twin 85s on it and would run a little over 50...but it felt much faster than running 50 in a regular runabout because you're basically sitting on top of the speedster with no real windshield. also, all of the power is immediate, no planing involved. very fun to play with, but if the lake you frequent is rough at all, you'll get tired of it pretty fast, IMO. get ready to stand on your head if you have to do any work on it.

Thanks, everyone for the responses. A few follow ups:

1). I won't be working on it myself, so am curious if they are hard or expensive to get serviced versus alternatives.

2) I will be using it almost exclusively on Lake Austin, which I believe to be pretty smooth water, except for other boat traffic. In your opinions, a good boat for Lake Austin, or not?

3). As these boats went out of production in 2012, I will be buying used. Any year models to avoid, or recurring problems I should look out for? Any recommendation on finding accurate values (like a boat version of edmunds.com)?

Thanks in advance!

What is your budget for one ?

Fine for chain lakes, no advice on reliability. Try to ask for hours and/or maintenance records. There's not really a good boat value site I know of.

I used to have a small closed bow ski boat on Lake Austin and it was fine for the most part but I'd avoid the busy part of the lake on the weekends because the damn wake surf boats throw up such huge wakes now it can get pretty rough out there. I guess it might be fun to jump some wakes in a jet boat though.

I have owned one of the smaller speedster 150s for about 6 years now. They are a really fun boat. You will be really surprised by its handling and performance. Whenever I'm asked about it, I describe it as a jet ski you can sit in and bring several other people on. The one negative thing about my boat to think about is that it is a very small boat. You can only have 4-5 people depending on what model year you are looking at.

It is small enough that you can tow it with just about any vehicle. I have used a 4 door wrangler for most of my towing. I think it weighs in at around 2000-2500 lbs with trailer.

It will get bumpy in choppy waters, but as long as winds are under 10-15 mph it is not that bad. Jumping wake from other boats is a lot of fun. I have never had a problem towing tubes, skis, or wake boards but we were never serious about wake boarding.