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View Full Version : Why no Jet Tech?



dankirk
06-20-2001, 06:34 AM
Why is there no Jet Tech in this month's Hot Boat? I find it hard to believe that they don't have any questions to answer considering the fact that the Jet Performance board has more posts then all the other boards combined. Hot Boat needs to realize that a large percentage of its readership have jet boats and would like to see more attention given to them.

mario
06-20-2001, 07:17 AM
I called hot boat for 2 reasons. (1) my last issue arrived water logged again. For the price they charge the magazine should come is a plastic wrapper like some other magazines do. (2) No jet tech this month. I was given no answer why but to call back and talk to chris. But I was told that they are reciving lots of mail to the tech department.

mario
06-20-2001, 07:18 AM
jet tech that is

beached1
06-20-2001, 07:40 AM
Personally, I think that most of the boat manufacturers advertising dollars are pushing for more focus on the bigger boats. The same thing happend to the sport of Jet Skis. Stand ups drove the sport into what it is. The racing was getting coverage from espn2. Most riders modified their skis and this fueled the aftermaket people. The magazines featured articles similar to Jet Tech, custom of the month etc. Then came the sit downs. The manufacurers were reporting that they were selling the sit downs 10 to 1 compared to the stand ups. Eventually, the magazines started to forget about the stand ups. No more tech articles. The aftermarket shops started to shake down because most people that buy a sit down leave their boats stock. They moved the stand up class in the racing circuit out of the main event. they removed the log jumps from the course and made the track longer with less turns. I'm not trying to bash on sit downs but this ruined the sport of jet ski racing. Rentals of sit downs didn't make us very popular either. I know I've kind of gotton off on a tangent here but the point I want to make is that I've seen this before. The big boats will get all the attention for a while. Then in a few years, you'll read this article about how jet boats are making a comeback. you'll be scratching your head thinkin' "F**K, we never left!"

lakecrazy
06-20-2001, 07:55 AM
Yes I also was dissappointed about no jet tech this month. It's one of the few reasons I subscribe. AAAAHHHH I remember the days (80's) when it was mostly jets.

dcraig
06-20-2001, 07:55 AM
The bottom line is the almightly dollar. Boat manufacturers make a lot more money selling those large offshore boats for guys using them at Havasu, the river, and parker. If a boat Mfg can sell a larger boat and make more money, thats what they will advertise in Hot Boat. As a result, Hot Boat caters to whomever they are deriving the most advertising revenues from.
If you ask me, the large boats running around at Havasu have no business there and should be in the Ocean where they belong. Most guys just use them to attract the females.

froggystyle
06-20-2001, 08:49 AM
Yeah, nothing like a 28' long penis extension. They aren't the problem though. The problem is that they go to a marine specialist to do everything, and these are the guys advertising. We go to Kragen. Or Summit, you get the picture. No Jet-tech is inexcuseable though. It costs them two pages that they dedicated long ago to the forum. They could have at least run a "classic" or old but good tech article. I'll tell you who took a real slap in the face on this one is the companies that continue to support and offer jet boats. I just saw the new Eliminator website, and they could care less about the jets. When you click on powertrains, they show only Mercruiser outdrive systems. All I have to say is, Thank you to John West and Ultra Custom Boats. I hope he buries the market.

Rivertoys_com
06-20-2001, 08:49 AM
Jet Tech is the first place I turn when I get the newest issue. It's true that many people are going bigger. Sad too, there are many people who don't have the money, space or desire to own a boat twice the length of their Suburban. I went to a few BIG custom boat manufacturers last week to see what's coming. I notice that smallest boat made by many companies is a 21. We must take care of the true river boats we have! That's part of the reason I'm redesigning rivertoys.com to feature what I call the true river boats - 16-21', flat bottom, jet & v-drive. I still welcome any custom to my Boats & Toys gallery, but will try get more true river boats through out the site. It's getting to a point where a new magazine is needed to cater to these style boats more directly. Just like the street rod world has several magazines covering different aspects of the same hobby. Owning a true river boat now involves a lot of skills that a magazine like Hot Boat (with all due respect) doesn't cover. Since many of our toys are 25 years or older and we do a lot of work ourselves - we need to see how to replace floors, repair gell coat, replace gauges & steering, etc... I think there is enough demand for a magazine covering these aspects of custom boating to be successful. Until that happens, we have the internet. There are a few good sites featuring these types of boats and topics. One of the reasons I prefer to include the e-mail address of the owners of the boats in my gallery is so you can contact those folks with questions about their boats and experiences. Let's stick together so the true river boat doesn't die completely!!!
Jason www.rivertoys.com (http://www.rivertoys.com)

dcraig
06-20-2001, 09:16 AM
I also think there is a strong market for newer boats and tech info of this type of boat.
There is little in the way of technical info available on Jet Drives, Engines, Hop Up's etc.
Just look at all the info available on outdrives. You can pretty much decide on how you would want to outfit a new boat with info available in most of the boat magazines.
When's the last time you read info on performance comparisons of the major jet drive manufacturers? Nothing in the way of specific details on the impact of various hop ups such as: jet drive blueprint, different impellers, aftermarket impellers, intake grates, set back pumps versus standard pumps, etc, etc, etc.
Basically the 18-22 foot boat market is virtually ignored in boating publications. We are basically on our own to tweak and modify our boats to attain the performance level we want.
Hot boats jet tech does not provide detailed and concise data on jet drive hop ups anyway. When a question is asked, there is never a strait forward answer. Anyone else ever notice that? My impression is that an opinion is never given as to brand etc due to business referral relationships....

spectras only
06-20-2001, 09:35 AM
One way to squeeze those big offshoreboats from Havasu is to start building bigger jetboats with twins .They would smoke them in acceleration and turning around a dime.A 26 28 foot jetboat with twin 350 cu and bigger engines .Imagine a twin 502 equipped jetboat doing a roostertail.Would put an Arneson driven boat to shame,heh.

timitunnel
06-20-2001, 09:42 AM
You would think that the editor would write a few words in here to put our minds at ease, especialy after the beating greg took last month on these pages. Maybe they are all to buisy building there eggbeater!

Gerrit
06-20-2001, 11:26 PM
I have no idea why you guys are complaining....... Other than your mad at yourself for wasting money on a magazine and not gas for your ride.
Look at it this way in 24 hrs time you will have more questions asked and answered from credible sources here on this board than you would get in 6 months of issues!! Plus maybe they realize a lot more gets done here in cyberspace than they could possibly do. Or maybe they think well just take care of ourselves, so why bother.. OOh boy now im gettin dizzy, mind is thinkin too much at one time.. http://free.***boat.net/ubb/smile.gif

ChetCapoli
06-21-2001, 04:44 AM
Guys, why not do this..just email greg shoemaker at his address SHOEMKER@AOL.COM As i have said before, if enough of us rattle HIS cage, he might get off his high horse and remember where his career started! With the squirt boat.
As DCRAIG has stated, whenever he gets a real tech question, he just beats around the bush or totally avoids the right answer anyway! Jack Seastrom never did that, his articles were far superior. (anyone know what happened to him?)
Besides, aggressor is the only one out there who is doing any real R and D in the jet world anyway, that's one of the many reasons i use it on my boat instead of the old "mousetrap"....that and the stuff works if you want to go fast!
chet

SeaSlut
06-21-2001, 05:07 AM
When some starts a rag featuring Hot jet boats, sign me up for a year or two.

Timer
06-21-2001, 06:25 AM
It's possible that something has happened to Greg and he wasn't able to work something up for the mag. Or maybe he's not even with Hot Boat anymore. (My wife says I'm always giving the benefit of the doubt to the other person too much -- being too nice.) Of course, this wouldn't stop the mag from putting in some old articles.

froggystyle
06-21-2001, 07:09 AM
Exactly. They abandoned a very large, very vocal segment of their readership. They are still the best boat mag around, and until Field and Stream starts taking pictures of chicks layed out on blower motors, I'll buy it over the others. This is actually my only mag subscription. You sure as hell don't see any 18' Jets in Powerboat magazine. I hope they start running better tech articles though. For example, most of the predominant jetboats are reaching the 20 year old mark. What are the issues plagueing them right now? Floorboard replacement, jet overhaul, leaks, fuel tank cleaning/replacement, converting to setback jets, replacing gears or something on a v-drive (hey, they are in the same boat as we are, so to speak) Interior repair, stereo install on a wet boat, gelcoat freshening, chrome restoration, safely flipping a boat, hell, safely removing a boat from the trailer to work on either. alternative coatings (headers and such), carpet replacement. These could all be done by their advertisers, for magazine articles. Do a twelve page article on converting to a set back pump. Half of these projects are going to end up at the pro shop anyway due to lack of tools, but a lot will end up there in a better condition for both people. Pump shops would love to get all their pumps handed to them. At least go over removal and replacement of the pump. I think that they need to know that we are not looking for a waterborne "Consumer Reports". While I'm sure that testing new boats is significantly more fun than flipping a 79' Placecraft Executive over to set back the pump, remove some hook, and re paint the hull, I would laminate that article and put it on my garage wall. I'm going to forward this to the good idea club at ***boat. I wish they would chime in on these subjects. Squirts forever!

Caribbean19'
06-21-2001, 08:16 PM
You guys are all correct. My wife is tired of me asking every day if my Hot Boat came, and then listening to me complain about the lack of coverage on boats that most of us actually have. Most of the boats that Hot Boat covers cost more than my house. The boats are way out of my league. I don't know the mag business, but maybe Larry Flint (sp?)as the publisher of Hot Boat could start an offshoot mag to cater to the "other" market--us smaller guys.

froggystyle
06-22-2001, 07:18 AM
Like I said though, try to find another mag with a picture of a 19' Sanger, or a Tahiti? I'm pleased that they cover them at all. What I do wish was that the editors, or staff writers would chime in on this forum a little more.

SB
06-22-2001, 11:26 AM
It is certainly possible that GS got busy and didn't make deadline. I can live with that, but I agree they could rerun stuff. If they run short of material they could pull a question off this board and even answer it with pictures. For example, once they had a complete article on changing a Jacuzzi to Berk. It was great, and I'll save it forever. When this site opened (I paid for it), they had old tech letters which I enjoyed reading. They should put those back up. And to echo someone else's comment, yes GS and the other tech writers often fail to answer the questions. This is what EDITORS are for. By the way, Trailer Boats July mag. attempts to cover several jets. It is purely a puff piece. The point is, we expect more from Hot Boat, and I see nothing wrong with telling them. Anybody up for a mass email? A few hundred should do it. A little protest is good now and then. OK we're not marching through Georgia with MLK, but still....

Racing Ray
06-22-2001, 01:22 PM
I also paid to join this site 3 years ago. I believe it was $18.00 for 6 months. Talk about a waste of money! 6 months and not one update! I wrote no less than 6 e-mails really chewing them out for promising frequent updates.
I never received even one reply back and no offer to refund any money even though I started asking less than 1 month from signing up. Now I strictly buy it from the newstand and only after browsing it to see if there is an article that catches my interests.
I dropped in not to long ago and noticed they added this board. I am sure it won't last too long there isn't a profit in it. It only increases thier hit ratio for advertising purposes to lure in new adds.
It sure is great for the time being to share knowledge and experiances with all you guys. If it has not already been said thanks to all you for the help. Any of you members have they done any better lately?

ChetCapoli
06-22-2001, 06:05 PM
Word has it Greg missed the deadline...i am going to email him now and i think a few others here should too and let him know of our dissapointment. Hopefully if enough of us email it wont happen again.
chet