Temperary Cavitation, How Often? How to Fix?

[3littlepigs]

Hi All,

I had another cavitation mishap over the last weekend. Driving along at full speed and heard some kind of change in the overall sound. I also felt a slight skip in propulsion. I took the throttle down to 4k rpm for 20 seconds and everything seemed ok. So I went back to full throttle. After 10 more seconds I thought things sounded slightly off so I took it down to idle. After 20 sec at idle I attempted to goto full throttle again and realized I had heavy cavitation on my starboard engine. I placed the boat in reverse for 10 seconds and then tried full throttle again. The problem was all gone now. This type of temporary cavitation has only happened to me about 3 times in 3 years. Obviously from something I sucked up. Every time this happens it scares the heck out of me and I think the worst, regarding different repair scenarios.
All these "Pro" videos I watch on how to resolve this type of problem say to get into the water and examine the impeller and shaft to look at the obstruction to make sure the situation doesn't get worse. I can agree with this but the rivers I'm in the visibility isn't more then 1 inch.
My question is, how often does this happen to you guys? I take it that this is a pretty normal thing to live with owning a jet propelled craft. What is your standard operating procedure(SOP) for handling these type of problems?

Thanks.

 

[Coastiejoe]

It is normal in that things to get sucked up into the intake(s).

I own two skis and have had them for 6 years now, I think I have had the issue three times. In all cases, I've been able to put it in reverse and give it some RPMs and clear the issue.

There is no real reverse, but it changes the water flow a bit and seems to work well for me.

Only once on both sis were we in an are with MANY MANY weeds. They got so sucked up and wrapped up on the shaft that I got over-heat alarms on both skis.

Had to slide into the water and reach up into the intake and pul the weeds out. Probably took me 5 minutes on each ski to clear them.

 

[illru]

My river is full of crap. When I'd suck something I would kill the engines and sit for a minute or two then go on may way. Never found a good solution for a tighter inlet great like the Merc pumps have.