Northwest Fishing Reports

I just bought a 2006 alumaweld stryker 17 ft. Outboard boat and was wondering if anyone here knows the fuel tank capacity. Can't find anything online about it. Thanks for any help!

Current model Stryker's have a 38gal tank, suspect the '06 model would be no more than that. Try contacting Alumaweld customer service - 800.401.2628

Thanks Hewesfisher. They were kind enough to email me a brochure that has all the specifications for the Stryker models in 17ft and 19ft for 2006. It is in fact a 38 gallon tank.

Wow! 38 gallons!! I have a 17' Talon and its only an 18 gallon tank. What size motor are you running on your Stryker?

60hp Yamaha 4 stroke. I ran from Deception pass to Lopez Island and running around all in between last weekend. I figured around 20 miles or so. Used just over 4 gallons of fuel. The guy I bought the boat from installed a wale tail on the motor and he said it makes a huge difference. He said he would never own another motor without one. I believe in it but I don't know anything different since I never ran it without it.

Ive read good and bad things about whale tails over the years. I've used them on several boats in the past with some success as far as improved ride and planing ability.

From what I have read, you might be better off trying to adjust the boats weight distribution and/or motor mounting height and/or trim angle - if you can do that. What needs to be adjusted depends on the problem your trying to fix with the fin.

If the boat is stern heavy or nose heavy or the motor is mounted too low or cant be or isn't trimmed in/out enough or you have the wrong prop, then the whale tail could be a big help - especially on smaller boats. You will get better gas mileage and the boat will get on plane sooner and handle better if you fix the under lying trim/setup problems though.

On the other hand, sounds like your getting fair fuel efficiency as is so it may not be worth it to you to spend the time and effort. It can take a lot of time and work to change something, go water test the boat, make another change, re-test, change, re-test, etc etc etc.

I tend to be anal about details like that so I normally go over board on fine tuning and fiddling and adjusting - to the point it drives my brothers crazy

If my trusty Mercury 2 stroke ever needs replaced, I would probably look at a 60hp 4 stroke. The 50hp 2 stroke pushes our boat over 30mph full throttle with 3 adults. I pull it back to a cruising speed of 27mp. What kind of speeds do you get with the 60hp 4 stroke? I hear the Yamaha 4 strokes sip gas, great motor!

C-money, with two adults and a full gas tank (38gal), I'm going 25 or 26 mph on the GPS with little or no current (which is rare). Going against the tide I go about 21mph. When I was looking for a used boat, I had the mind set of getting only something that had a Honda, Suzuki, or Yamaha. All three are awesome engines. I had an old Suzuki two stroke on my last boat and loved it. It was one of those auto oil ones so I just had to make sure there was 2 stoke oil in the reservoir then it would mix on it's own. I'm pretty impressed with the Yamaha 60 hp so far. I'm not the fastest guy out there but I can get anywhere I want in decent time and not use a bunch of fuel. One last thing, the guy that I bought it from only crabbed in the boat and said he'd run all season on one tank of gas. I didn't ask how far out he was going and how often.

Larry, as far as tinkering with the motor I'll just let it be unless the shop says otherwise. I'm more on the lines of if it's not broken don't fix it. I'm not a mechanic so when I pretend to be one, I usually mess something up or get something apart that I can't put back together.