Well, I took the kids tube'n for the first time this year, and it went pretty well. The boat pulls well, and has a nice wake. I did spray one kid with the diverter a little bit, but he cried, and wouldn't talk for a while, so I will likely only do that to adults from now on. Only bad thing that happened was the entire 75 foot rope got sucked into the pump while ideling, and took about an hour to cut it all out through the hand hole. Now I have a whole bunch of 6 inch to 12 inch pieces of ski rope! Anybody else ever do this???

A better question might be -- has anyone NOT done this?   
In some boats it is a small inconvenience and a learning experience.   I others you want to hit yourself in the head with a hammer cuz there just ain't no easy way to get to the "guts".

I guess I am lucky,... my JE pump with the external handhole, and no swim platform covering it allowed for easy access for removing ropes and diapers and stuff. Plus, I shut the motor off right away, so the rope was not wrapped to the driveshaft all that tightly. I did manage to bend the trim-a-just cable when I was sitting on the nozzle while cutting out the rope. The trim did not work after that, but back at home I removed the cable, and was able to straighten the end, and everything works well again. I guess they are not meant to hold 190 pounds. I did discover that some parts for a Berkeley trim-a-just are no longer available, so I figure some day I will be asking for help finding parts for that.
 As far as spraying people, this is my first jet boat, so we had to try it. I did not have another driver along, so I could not be the test dummy myself, but as soon as I can, I will try it out.

Not sure if I ever told this story before....

About 1989 at Nacimiento reservoir, my family had a little get together and my mom and dad came down with the Renegade that my dad built from a blank. This boat is virtually a clone to the boat I have now. Well anyway, they had just built it and the boat had only been wet a couple of times, but it ran hard...

My dad owned a machine shop at the time and he built the meanest big bock Chevy I had ever seen. The hull was basically one of the disposable drag hulls that my then boss turned us on to, it was originally supposed to be a vee bottom vee drive, but we built a jet with it.

So it was getting late in the afternoon and the water started to lay down pretty good, which if you have ever been to Nacimiento lake, you know this is rare. I had not had the chance to ski yet, so I asked my mom if she would pull me. So it was my dad as the spotter (he had had a few beers and didn't feel comfortable driving) and my mom driving and me, my sister and some family friends were watching from the beach area by the dam.

I am all ready to go, yell "hit it" and the next thing I remember was the rope getting tight and being blasted in the face and chest to the point that it felt like someone was wailing on me with a surfboard. I get up and go right as far as I can to get out of the spray and all I hear is the boat running wide friggen open (no GPS at the time, but the boat was capable of over 70 MPH) and my dad was frantically moving around trying do something, but my eyes hurt from the spray, I finally let go of the rope once I realized the throttle was stuck on the boat. Finally the boat idled down and came back to get me.  My dad went to reach for the ski I was holding and looked at me and said "oh my God"....My face was as red as a ripe apple and my arms had already bruised from the roost.

In short, when my mom mashed the gas, the cable inadvertently went past the trunnion and got stuck in the "balls out" position, the Jet-O-Vater was in the slight up position, putting the roost just about face height and I ended up looking like I went 3 rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard....

It hurt like a bitch for three days...BTW, we fixed the cable and we don't roost people any more....

Fast forward to 1999....Shasta Lake, family reunion, my jet is there and it was like 120* in the shade......I had this bright idea to take the jet out and do a brodie to get the houseboat wet because you could not walk on the roof it was so damn hot....

I head out about 100 yards from the boat, Place Diverter up a bit and hammer the throttle and did a perfect circle...When I stopped, looked at the house boat, it blew every window out of the side of the boat......Needless to say, it was not very popular...That one cost a few thousand dollars.

Be careful with these weapons of mass destruction...

GT

THAT is funnier than my ears ringing for 3 days from Nates roost..........But I must confess, I did get him first...........

Ray

@GT Jets, Dude that's the funniest shit i've ever heard!!!! that one hurt my abs!! oh whew. Ok. My rope story.

Was at Havasu with a bunch of buddies, boat loaded down. We were all drinking when some dude kept feeding my buddies chick drinks and getting all close. So I loaded my friends up before any drama hit since I was the only sober one and outnumbered by dudes. We got back to the lake and the same buddy who's chick was being friendly with the random guy was pissing me off cause he wouldn't shut up and drop it. So I decided it was time to use the tank that i'd reserved for tubing. I told him he was the first one. I swear he had to have been doing at least 70 mph on the outside when he ate it! He was still drunk so he didn't really feel it until the next morning. When I came around to pick him up, I had told everyone to pull themselves up on the bow and to stay away from the hot engine, he climbed in through the back, fell into the engine and screamed HOT HOT!!! falling back into the water! It was hilarious. Well while I was waiting for him to get in I kept telling everyone to hurry cause the rope was coming closer. Well bunch of drunks laughing doesn't help so I jumped out of the driver seat, while it was still idling, and sat in front of the steering wheel. I grabbed the rope and started to reel it in but it got yanked out of my hand! I knew immediately what had happened and reached back and shut her down in a matter of seconds. I was furious!!! I jumped in and looked into the grate from under the water and saw that almost all the rope was in the shaft. We ended up getting towed to the wrong launch ramp, tools being in my truck at London Bridge ramp. So this lady offered to take my wife on her jet ski to pick up the truck while I held the boat there for an hour and a half. Don't ask me why it took so long. While waiting some guy asked if I needed help, told him what had happened. Must have been a jet guy cause he laughed at me almost mockingly and told me to keep a huge steak knife on my boat from now on cause it will happen again. Ass. Anyways, got the boat on the trailer finally and ended up having to disconnect the driveshaft to the pump and used a pry bar to turn it in reverse while another buddy pulled the rope out. Dark by the time we got it all out. We were good the next day but the rope had put pressure on my grease seal and I needed to readjust it. Good times.

What else am I supposed to say? He was right. lol   

I was at sundance in parker 10 years ago , when a couple started arguing.... obviously after too many colorado kool aids.... He thought his wife was hitting on the bartender . So he stumbled down to his bad ass blown flatbottom backed it up to the bar and nailed everyone .... people fell , signs were knocked down lol ..... He was arrested though ...