The Mariah Owners Club - Does a jubilee 4.3 have enough power to pull a wake boarder

Yes.

You won't win any races and if you're on a big body of water, you will long for a higher cruising speed, but yes, it will will plane out easily and will pull anything but a bare footer behind it.

This spring I bought a '99 214 Jubilee with a 4.3 and duo prop. After a summer of using it, here's my take on it.

Mine came with 24p props on it. Initially it got out of the hole ok, but wasn't particularly quick getting there. Top speed with 1/2 a tank of fuel, 2 adults and 2 kids on board was 39.5 (gps) at 4450 rpm.

I changed to 22p props and am happy with the switch. Top speed is the same but now a turning bit over 4800 rpm. Hole shot is very tolerable and can pull my 185lb butt out of the water on one ski. I can stay on plane at a reasonable speed for the kids on knee boards and wake boards and have good mid-range throttle response for flinging the kids around on the tubes.

It worked hard, but was able get on plane with 5/8 tank of fuel and 8 {cough}"full sized" adults on board. I was easily the smallest in that group at 185. I'd guess we had 1800ish lbs of people on board, plus a couple coolers of refreshments.

Fuel consumption has been very good. Our hours come from a lot of mixed use. Pulling water toys for a day, then turning around and running 40 miles to meet up with friends. I ran a 20' Astro Fish n ski with a 200hp merc last year. On an 80 mile ride that we took with the Astro (2 adults, 2 kids), I burned 38 gallons of fuel. General cruising speed was in the low 40's. A few miles of the ride was at WOT racing a big go-fast at 60 mph and I was a bit more "spirited" coming out of the no wake zones. With the Jubilee this year (4 adults, 2 kids), the same ride burned 27 gallons. Our max speed registered on the gps track was 34mph with the Jubilee.

My biggest complaint about about my current setup is the low cruising speed for running long distance. Comfortable cruise is just under 30mph. I know this is fixable with more hp, but the trade-off in fuel savings is worth it to me.

As for the boat layout and design... it's been great for us. Lots of seating and storage space. The walk through transom and side are _very_ nice at the dock and on the water getting kids in/out of the boat. The boat is very dry in wind/waves.

Complaints about layout/design: the lack of a center windshield which can make riding home in the evenings a chilly event. Passengers only complaint seems to be that when planing out, the walk through on the starboard side makes it so riders on that bow seat have to hold on so they don't slide off the seat into that walk way.