Wayyyyyyyy fast enough for me on the St Johns River.

My 17' 50hp 2 stroke did 45 once. Scared the heck out of me. Also there was a lot of vibration. I was a a big rock skipping across the water.

On the one hand it's nice to know what it can do if i need it but mostly i don't go over 20.

Plus anything over 3,000 rpm and i can watch my gas gauge drop.

Also i agree with the aircraft carrier post. I have to make all my turns in a cove or creek with the trolling motor.

Yep you want to go fast buy a boat that's made for it or a jet ski, fishing boats generally aren't and the one's that are take a lot of experience to operate. I would never get anything bigger than a 17'( shallow water and river use).

Mom  Can I have longer oars ?  Please

 

I can not keep up with the bass.

9 hours ago, cyclops2 said:

O K what is glamping ? 

I guess the "Gla" is for glamour?

 

Also called "luxury camping", glamping often includes a large extravagant semi-permanent tent with things like real beds, electricity, indoor plumbing, internet. Sometimes it's a cabin, and usually it's in some kind of a resort.

 

One thing it really is not is "camping". They can be very expensive too. It's what yuppies (if that's still a thing) might call camping.

 

I looked it up and some descriptions say "It's good for families". Uh ya, so is camping!

I think 64mph on that 2 ton behemoth is wishful thinking...

even with a 400

I'm a speed junky so there's no such thing as too fast for me! I own a car that will do 200+ mph (yes I've tested it) and I had a boat that would do 90 easily. I blew the motor and ended up getting rid of the whole thing. 

Contrary to popular belief, you can go fast safely if you know what you're doing and use some common sense. 

As you can tell from the amount of responses this is a subject that has two very distinct sides. The "you can't catch fish at 60 mph" side. And the "if your boat doesn't scare you a little, it's not fast enough" side. Personally I grew up on the back deck of a bass boat. I fall into the later group. There are reasons to have the fastest boat in the club if you tournament fish. If not, just wanting to go fast is reason enough. Over the years of playing with fast bass boats I've found my comfort zone is 80 and below. After 80 things really start to change and high speed blow out becomes a concern, not to mention blow over. Things happen very quickly at high speed and driver skill is a real factor. There are dues to be paid when considering going fast. The learning curve is steep and expensive. What the Big boys of go fast boats consider fast is warp speed to most everyone else. Those guys paid dearly to go that fast. Lots of seat time learning how, and tons of money in the proper set up to squeeze every mph out of their rig. Bottom line "Whats to fast", is a personal question you must ask yourself. Cause in reality, your's is the only opinion that matters. 

17 hours ago, Hi-Powered Red Neck said:

As you can tell from the amount of responses this is a subject that has two very distinct sides. The "you can't catch fish at 60 mph" side. And the "if your boat doesn't scare you a little, it's not fast enough" side. Personally I grew up on the back deck of a bass boat. I fall into the later group. There are reasons to have the fastest boat in the club if you tournament fish. If not, just wanting to go fast is reason enough. Over the years of playing with fast bass boats I've found my comfort zone is 80 and below. After 80 things really start to change and high speed blow out becomes a concern, not to mention blow over. Things happen very quickly at high speed and driver skill is a real factor. There are dues to be paid when considering going fast. The learning curve is steep and expensive. What the Big boys of go fast boats consider fast is warp speed to most everyone else. Those guys paid dearly to go that fast. Lots of seat time learning how, and tons of money in the proper set up to squeeze every mph out of their rig. Bottom line "Whats to fast", is a personal question you must ask yourself. Cause in reality, your's is the only opinion that matters. 

While I totally agree with everything you said and I may be wrong about this but I have never read or seen any proof of a bass boat doing a “blow over”.  Lots of hooks and flips but the blow overs I have seen have all been on boats other than bass hulls.  I know Allison, Stroker, and a few others can be 100mph boats, I have never read about one blowing over?

What happens is the boat hits a big wake at speed, the bow goes up, the weight in the back goes forward the high speed air kites the boat bottom and it blows over. It doesn’t like a hydroplane where high speed air is problem.

A good driver backs off the throttle when seeing the big wave killing speed and momentum.

Hooking the bow on a wave angle flipping the boat is more common. A good friend died from a flat bottom bow flip.

Tom

*Buzz Coats driving Mortician, Ray Casellie diving Panic Mouse, both good friends. 

 

4 hours ago, TOXIC said:

While I totally agree with everything you said and I may be wrong about this but I have never read or seen any proof of a bass boat doing a “blow over”.  Lots of hooks and flips but the blow overs I have seen have all been on boats other than bass hulls.  I know Allison, Stroker, and a few others can be 100mph boats, I have never read about one blowing over?

I've never heard of it happening on a bass boat either. I was just saying. 

I watch a bass boat blow over on lake Castaic in the 90’s.

The boat hit a big wake, sailed about 100 yards before land Updike down engine first.

Ironically the patrol boat was responsible for the big wake and the bass boat was heading to a high wind white capped surface. 

Tom

When  I was shopping for my boat, I spent so much time thinking about maxing out my motor and top end speed.  The reality is 90% of the time I am traveling 30-40 mi/hr when on plane just like in my old boat.   AJay is 100% correct- the difference between 35 mi/hr and 55 mi/hr is huge on the water.   

On 1/18/2022 at 4:20 PM, WRB said:

 I water skied behind this boat Long Beach to Catalina Island Avalon.

 

This comment by WRB might get overlooked, but that is pretty awesome to ski that distance! 

when you feel uncomfortable driving the boat is when it's to fast, then just back off a tick and keep going.......works for me.ALWAYS wear a lifejacket !!!!!!!!! I don't care if you just puttering around or hauling butt.......just put em on........you could save your own life....

1 hour ago, Chowderhead said:

This comment by WRB might get overlooked, but that is pretty awesome to ski that distance! 

30 mile course isn’t a long distance, trying to average over 50 mph on the ocean surface was very difficult during race conditions.?

 

 

I had a 70yo friend that did the Catalina Ski Race every year.  As far as speed on the water goes it's where ever I'm comfortable.  I have friends with Bullets and such that I trust.  I had an 11 second drag bike in the late 60s and raced dirt bikes for many years but I usually cruise @ 20-25 in my tin bass boat.  No where to go and all day to get there.

1 hour ago, Alex from GA said:

I had a 70yo friend that did the Catalina Ski Race every year.  As far as speed on the water goes it's where ever I'm comfortable.  I have friends with Bullets and such that I trust.  I had an 11 second drag bike in the late 60s and raced dirt bikes for many years but I usually cruise @ 20-25 in my tin bass boat.  No where to go and all day to get there.

Getting older isn’t for sissy’s my mother in law would say.

You “had” a friend who ski raced when 70? I was in my prime at in the 20’s. Stopped racing with the death of my older brother.

High speed isn’t forgiving.

Tom

My Lund with a 75 honda is sluggish but I'm fine with it. Tops out around 36-37 and gets me where I need to go. The good thing is that 4 stroke sips gas so at least there's that aspect. My dad's Chris Craft Corsair will do close to 70 and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a bit jealous. 

Bullet, 300 Merc combo, and 87mph.  Was that all it would do or was that all your nerves would let it do.  I built a 3.0 Johnson for a friend several years back with him and me in it while I was doing the final tunning and setup, it ran 92.4 with both of us in it, both of use were over 200 pounds.  Never saw the proof, but he claimed he had seen 97 with just him in the boat.  Of course that motor was putting out just a little more than that 300 Opti-Pop.

I don't think anyone with any experience in fast boats are ever really comfortable when a boat is fully up on it's pad and only the last couple of feet of it are just skipping along on the water.  Like I said, I've owned a lot of very fast boats in my life.  When one is fully aired out and up on the pad, your since of situational awareness is peaked.  First, you are up straighter, your arms and whole body is more tense, while the steering wheel looks like it's in a nervous jitter while dealing with the chine walk.  Your head and eyes are never still while you are looking around and at the water and for any surprises that might pop up.  These things don't have brakes, and you definitely don't want to be making a sudden panic chop of the throttle.  Do that and you will probably learn what they call a "Bat Turn" is, and hope you are still in the boat after you do.   Nothing like moving forward at 75 - 85mph and then within a couple of seconds, be facing the direction you just came from.  I've seen more than one person ejected from their boat doing a throttle chop at high speed.  I've seen boats that will do it at 60 mph if they are light enough to be well up on the pad.  What happens is, when you chop the throttle, it slams the front of the boat down and that huge amount of sudden hull drag makes the back of the boat where all the weight is, flip around, and your body is still trying to go straight while the boat is trying to go the opposite direction.   

75 gets you there in a hurry, and is nice to have on a big lake, but 45- 50, gets you there on half the gas and feeling a whole lot more relaxed.  

 

On Jig Man's post below, for several years, before I got the dual console Javelin R20, I was running a Stratos 285 Pro, rated for 175hp with a 326 hp 3.0 Johnson I built.  I always had the need for speed.

My old boss had an 18' boat with a tweaked out 300 on it.  He was a motor mechanic but his brother is a tune up specialist.  I never saw the boat run but he took it to his brother for a tune up.  His brother called and told me to tell Fred that his boat was ready.  He had had it out on Table Rock that morning and it would do 105.  The only time he could run it was right at daylight before any boats were on the water and before the wind got up.  

On 1/16/2022 at 12:19 AM, Eric 26 said:

I’m going to start by saying I’m not a boat owner and have never been. With that said my boating experience has consisted of being in a 14-16 foot? 3 bench seat aluminum v-bottom boat with a 9 horsepower outboard when I was 10-15 years old (52 now) and being on my in-laws 38 foot cabin cruiser (10 plus years ago. I’m not sure what the top end speed we hit in either vessel was as I didn’t pilot either but I’m sitting here watching an episode of “The Next Bite” and Gary Parsons  is talking about doing 67 mph (I’m assuming) in a nitro zv21 with a Mercury Verado 400. I’m bringing this up out of curiosity after reading the post which I can’t remember the heading referring to coming close to hitting objects and if I’m remembering correctly someone saying they hit an alligator. This is not me being judgmental but more curious than anything, for those who haven’t seen the show the hosts fish up north and are generally on very large lakes including the Great Lakes so again its more my curiosity than anything else. If no one responds I completely understand.

Wow, lots of judgy replies in here.  First off, the boat in the show is a not a bass boat.  It is a very heavy, wide hull, deep-v walleye boat.  It takes quite a few horsies to motivate it.  67 mph may sound fast, but isn't really all that fast.  I was running almost 85 mph in my last boat, a 21'10" Bullet with a 2.5L Merc Racing motor.  I don't know the exact HP, but I'm gonna guess north of 250.  That hull was very light, at only 1280 lbs., so power to weight ratio is bit different than in the OP's example rig.  I will say this, most bass boats with the maximum HP on them will do more than 60, and like I said that isn't that fast.  The difference between 75 and 80 is like night and day, and things just seem to get amplified.  My particular boat was a pain to drive in the mid 50s low 60s.  Chine walk was bad and it just never felt natural on the pad without trimming down like you would do for a turn.  It took me at least two years to learn how to really drive that boat, and I have 30 years of experience handling motorboats.  I also usually set it up (prop pitch, engine height) for hole shot and acceleration performance rather than top speed.  With that setup, it would plane in seconds at around 16 MPH with a top speed around 76.  My next boat will be a bit larger and have a Merc Racing 400R Verado, and I expect it will do around 75 mph, which is fine for me.  In short, fast is relative and speed is not for everyone.

My pontoon is slow out of the hole and tops out around 20 mph. 

I never pop it and rarely go that fast.

 

Fastest I've seen is 113+ single pass & followed that up with a 2 pass average of 115+.

 

Jerry Pettefer: Sulphur, LA. 1996 Bullet 20CC ....Mercury 2.5 EFI Drag.

 

Jerry's accomplishments 

13 Time High Points Champion
5 Time National Champion
5 Time World Champion
2 Time Grand National Champion

 

I've heard of but can't officially verify 119-121 mph 

 

Fastest I've been was slightly over 90+.

In the stump laden, submerged log filled, stick up catching waters of South Louisiana sometimes 18 mph feels too fast ?