Running in salt or brackish water.

[Dave Cofone]

Since it looks like I will be the owner of a SO hydroplane for the foreseeable future I am just going to keep working on it and get it in the best shape I can. I am going to do some things differently this time. I don't want to give the gremlins a chance at anymore problems before I even get my feet wet. This time I'm going to test it thoroughly before dragging it to a race. There isn't much available water in my area other than salt and brackish. I had an old inboard 145 and it ran in salt, a friends skiff was always in salt so I was wondering if I can run the little hydro in the same conditions and clean the heck out of it just like all the other boats I've had. Your opinions matter to me, what say you.

[Carruthers]

I test my boat every available weekend in salt water and clean it thoroughly after every run without any problems run water through the intake or with some salt away if you want a little extra

[ZUL8TR]

I used to test and run APBA at some salt water races in Fla and flushed in fresh water. If you flush with fresh water soon after shut down there should be no issues. One thing I did find years later in the Merc 2 cyc that was flushed well after running in salt water (and ran many years in fresh water) was salt crystals did still form on the cooling chamber walls and weren't removed. Noticed this years later when I pulled the block end plate off when doing a refresh. The crystals caused some divots in the aluminum. Cleaned up with dilute solution of muriatic acid (pool acid) and tooth brush and neutralized with baking soda solution. So apparently in my case just flushing with fresh water wasn't 100%. Might want to use some salt away (noted above) in the flush for better results.

[DeanFHobart]

FYI to All,

Some of the Stadiums in Japan where the Yamatos are raced are salt water.

[ZUL8TR]

What they do with flushing out the salt water after race day?

[DeanFHobart]

What they do with flushing out the salt water after race day?

I don’t know.... fresh water most likely. Or possibly they do not flush them. Rick Montoya or Bob Wartinger would most likely know.

[Dave Cofone]

Looks like I'm going to try testing in my local area and it is all brackish. I'll flush the heck out of the hull and motor. The inboard racers routinely run there boats in the same conditions so I think I'll be fine, just more work....