Saltwater use

[Tacklebox]

Hi all,

I am looking at acquiring a used 2006 tige 24ve. The boat will be used primarily for wake boarding and wake surfing on a freshwater lake, however I would periodically like to use it on the pacific ocean to do short half day trips to scuba dive sites. All salt water use would be in calm protected waters.

Are there any concerns or special considerations I should be aware of using the boat in salt water? Do any of you use your tiges in salt water?

If after running in salt water, I dropped the boat back in fresh water and went for a rip, would this be sufficient to flush the engine and prevent any corrosion issues?

Thanks,

TB

[TigeTrojan]

Oh man, I wrote out a big long response for you and then lost it. Here it goes again.

As soon as that boat hits salt water, the resale value will plummet. Not sure if that matters to you or not.

First thing to consider is the cooling system. Most of these boats have a "raw water" system meaning they use the lake or ocean water to cool the engine. However, some of them will have a closed system, like a car with a radiator. If the boat you're looking at has a closed cooling system, that would be ideal. Chances are if it's in California, it raw water, but definitely look into that.

I imagine that flushing it out in the lake would be most effective and certainly the most fun way to do it, however if you're in California that could be an issue as well. They are inspecting all boats before they let you put them in any lake because of the zebra mussels and won't let you in if anything in the boat is wet or if you admit to being in another possibly contaminated body of water within 10 or 15 days (or something like that). Not sure if the ocean is on that list or not.

Other factors are that these boats, or any purpose built ski/wakeboard boat, are really not designed for the ocean, at least not the pacific. The shape of the hull is designed with the main focus on the shape of the water behind the boat, not in front. If there is any swell, and with tanks, weights, people and all, be prepared to take water over the bow, even at anchor while diving.

The prop and gearing is designed to get you up to speed as fast as possible, but not for high top speed. Don't know how far your dive sites are from the marina, but it might be pretty slow going in a boat like this. On a perfectly flat day you could do 35mph, but if there are any waves, I imagine it being a long and bumpy ride.

In a perfect world I'd have a tige for the lake and some 50'+ yacht to dive off of, but if I was trying to get one boat that would be able to do both, I'd probably go for a little bigger I/O cruiser maybe with a cabin.

I guess it depends on how much more lake time you'll have than ocean time. I absolutely love my tige and would highly recommend it for the lake.