Williams v AB Jets

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Lozzer

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I have to buy a new jet rib for our yacht that will be delivered next spring.

The question is what are peoples views on both Williams and AB Jets.

We have owned a few Williams before (Weber engined) without issues, having said that I have had friends that have changed the engine twice in one season. I know that both are now using Rotax so hopefully that will be better.

Key areas for our consideration is warranty support and global reach of that warranty. This will be put on a boat that has ambitions to go world cruising.
 
Wow - blast from the past!!
Where have you been?

OK, so you know what I'm going to say.
For reliability - an outboard RIB, especially if you are considering world cruising.
If all fails, you can replace the whole outboard easily but IMO, outboards are more reliable than jet boats and I've owned both.
 
Hi Hurricane

I have been hiding on sailing boats for a number of years now. Currently building our second Oyster yacht and need to put a bigger RIB on it.

I fully agree with you about the engine but my boss is really quite adamant about having a jet. The young boys like to push it a bit so the fact there is no prop is a big plus. I get that one can still be hit by the boat.

In fairness to jet ribs we owned one on the Princess 85 and I had no problems with it in 4 years. Mind I was very careful with the maintenance, flushing after every use, changing oil, spraying a can of WD40 once a month in the engine compartment, winterising etc. By the same token I had friends that replaced the Weber engine twice in one summer.

I am hoping that with Rotax engine it is a bit more generic and better global support.

How has your boating been going? Hope you are still enjoying it.

Regards
 
Hurricane said:
If you haven't been following this forum, this video sums up our continued enjoyment of the Med.

Click to expand...

Ah many spots I remember very well. Hopefully next summer i will get to revisit. What with COVID our build has been somewhat delayed.

Have you ever tried stopping at the Columbrettes? I went the once after the Valencia GP and sadly it was full. The place is stunning and well worth trying to stop at if conditions are right and it isn't to much of a detour.

Nice to see the 67' going strong. That was a very nice model from Princess, manageable with a couple yet big enough to take guests in comfort. I note your solar panels, nice idea to benefit from all that free energy.
 
The Columbrettes is one of those places that you only works when the weather is perfect.
It is in the middle of nowhere but only a couple of miles detour when en-route from Sannt Carles to Ibiza so we sometimes pop in to have a look.
Unfortunately it is too deep to anchor so they have laid buoys and the nicest ones (inside the cauldron) are only big enough for boats up to 15m
Anything bigger has to use one of the three buoys on the west side.
For those who don't know what the Columbrettes looks like, here's a pic:-

columbretes_uno.jpg


The solar panels allow us to stay at anchor longer - they aren't designed to tackle the whole load but do a good job of finishing the charge cycle after the generator has done most of the job when it can (i.e. when the batteries can take most charge) - fully charging batteries takes a long time - particularly when they get nearer to fully charged. Maybe that make sense.
 
Have you thought to change to Lithium batts. We have them on the sail boat and they are a real game changer for us. On the new yacht we will be able to run our aircon overnight. The charge time is so much faster as well which means fewer hours on the genset or main engine. The weight saving AH per Kilo is amazing too. A friend is having a new Princess being built and he is going down that road as he likes to go silent overnight.
 
Lozzer said:
Have you thought to change to Lithium batts. We have them on the sail boat and they are a real game changer for us. On the new yacht we will be able to run our aircon overnight. The charge time is so much faster as well which means fewer hours on the genset or main engine. The weight saving AH per Kilo is amazing too. A friend is having a new Princess being built and he is going down that road as he likes to go silent overnight.
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Yep - as I understand it, you are correct.
But, at the time, it would have been a very expensive exercise.
Given that in the past, I have killed a bank of batteries over a season for other reasons (charger failure etc - not the charger's fault - long story).
I was frightened that I might do the same to an expensive lithium bank.
I also have lots of spares for the standard flooded cell batteries (spare chargers etc) that would be wasted in a lithium upgrade.
I've tried AGMs but have now come full circle and just using a good (well known) cheap easily sourced lead acid battery - currently the Varta J2
Each time I buy new lead acid, I revisit the lithium upgrade but I always "chicken out".
 
Lozzer said:
I fully agree with you about the engine but my boss is really quite adamant about having a jet. The young boys like to push it a bit so the fact there is no prop is a big plus. I get that one can still be hit by the boat.
Click to expand...
So the answer is to use an outboard with a jet drive lower unit? Can swop the drive over to new motor if ever required.

Impressed with some Ruskies on YouTube and the places they go with their jet drive SIBs, often in just a few inches of water. The drives withstand some really hard impacts while climbing rapids etc.
(You can turn on auto-generated English subtitles)
 
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limecc said:
So the answer is to use an outboard with a jet drive lower unit? Can swop the drive over to new motor if ever required.

Impressed with some Ruskies on YouTube and the places they go with their jet drive SIBs, often in just a few inches of water. The drives withstand some really hard impacts while climbing rapids etc.
(You can turn on auto-generated English subtitles)
Click to expand...

That looks really cool. I wonder what the outboard manufacturers make of it.
 
Too much shallow stuff with jets sucking up debris blunts the impeller, that’s the risk .

The odd sandy beach shallow start launching a jet ski or Williams after a boozy beach lunch haunt isn’t gonna hurt it in every day life .It might lose a few knots at WOT , but you can’t tell .
 
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