Re: inflatable HP for kids - advice wanted
Hiya,<br /><br />I'm not sure how experienced with boats and tubing/skiing or whatever... but a word of caution, it's not just the speed that is the safety concern.<br /><br />Anytime you have someone in the water close to an outboard motor you have a major safety issue. I have seen many times that people not familiar with boats don't give the prop in the water the proper respect. I've seen people climb into the boat by climbing on the cavitation plate of a running outboard (thought it was safe because it was in neutral)... as they are clawing at the sides of the motor (= gear shift) looking for a hand hold!! I've seen someone say "ok start it up" while they are in the water and literally touching the outboard!<br /><br />How these people manage to not mangle themselves is beyond me. Or maybe Darwin is at work, and their boating experiences end badly (?).<br /><br />So, whatever outboard you have on the inflatable, make sure your teens know that the motor should be shut off anytime there is a swimmer in the water close to the boat.... When it's time to start, either push the tuber away or have them paddle away.<br /><br />As for your Q, like said above it depends. I've seen kids skiing behind a 15 hp on inflatables. When I was a teen, a friend of mine had a zodiac with a 35 hp on it. We skiied slalom behind it, and could ski double (2 people) if we got up on 2 skis. I have no idea what that zodiac was rated for, but my guess is that it was overpowered. FYI, it was a bit of a wild ride in that boat when someone was slaloming hard behind it. With such a light boat and relatively low torque engine it really slowed the boat when someone pulled hard. The 35 hp was marginal for deep water slalom starts.<br /><br />Also, don't forget the weight of the spotter in the boat... in my experience, the performance of inflatables is very affected by weight.
