2018 Moomba Helix issues after 12 hours only

[decouttere]

Coming from a 1979 Mastercraft, reading about all the good stuff about Moomba on this forum and after testing a few options, we finally settled on a custom Moomba Helix 2018, fully loaded with all goodies from Moomba for surfing since we only use it for family/kid surfing, tubing and simply cruising on Swiss lakes (yep, we live there )

Now with 12 hours on the clock, we are looking at 2 main problems that don’t seem to get fixed since Moomba is not very well known here in Switzerland and these issues severly take away the fun of even using the boat Today it got so bad that my kids are afraid of it ...

Problem 1: whenever we fill the front ballast, our bilge pump triggers and start pumping out water from the boat. Front ballast has been replaced already but problem remains. Fill the bag, just wait, water becomes visible (2 inches easily) and bilge pump triggers. So I’m wondering if there’s another ballast apart from the front one (under the seats) ? Anyone else had that kind of one leakage ?

Problem 2: the worst problem actually. Today we wanted to try surfing for the first time with our own boat so I went ahead, filled all ballasts, center plate at 20%, port side at 65%, did 2 test runs to set correct speed and we had a nice clean wave ! So good to go, one of the kids in the water, start and then the worst possible shaking happened. Very bad at the steering wheel and the helm but essentially after 30 seconds the entire boat !! My wife went straight for the life jackets ...
We had another try, exactly the same.
Emptied all ballasts, problem gone.
Filled all ballast, no surfer behind the boat, problem gone.
Add a surfer and yep ... problem back.

I have no clue what’s going on. Visual check underneath the boat didnt show anything unusual.
Anyone has any clue of what might be causing this?

So if you’d ask me today then my answer would be that we’re very disappointed with this Moomba. The boat has more issues than my ‘79 Mastercraft and trust me, a merit not easily achieved...

Really hope that some fellow Helix owners can help me sorting out these issues so we can finally start surfing behind this thing

[larry_arizona]

Sounds like you have a leak in the front ballast bag, check all hoses as it is filling, if you are getting enough water for the bilge pumps to kick on, the leak should be fairly obvious.

Not sure what is causing the shake you speak of.


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[decouttere]

Unfortunately nothing visual, only thing we hear is dripping when we open the inspection lid in the middle of the floor, but it seems to be underneath the plastic tank (I assume this is the gas tank under the floor). So I have no idea how to reach that area unless the dealer removes the entire flooring...

The shaking is an even bigger mysterie. Could it be a prop or shaft misalignment issue?
It really happens the moment I pull someone with ballast tanks full (so not e.g. when pulling a tube with empty tanks)

[LAwake]

Unfortunately nothing visual, only thing we hear is dripping when we open the inspection lid in the middle of the floor, but it seems to be underneath the plastic tank (I assume this is the gas tank under the floor). So I have no idea how to reach that area unless the dealer removes the entire flooring...

The shaking is an even bigger mysterie. Could it be a prop or shaft misalignment issue?
It really happens the moment I pull someone with ballast tanks full (so not e.g. when pulling a tube with empty tanks)

The shaking sounds like a prop issue.
The leak sounds like you have a hose or connection loose from your in bow bag (I'm guessing you have the Surf Edition Helix?) OR you have an issue with your hard tank in the floor near the bow. With the Surf Edition Helix, the hard tank fills first, then it overflows into the front bow bag. It sounds like you have a loose connection between the hard tank and bow bag connections or an issue with the hard tank.

[Hallerkids]

I had bad vibration issues on my 2018 helix when all ballast were full .dealer checked everything then replaced prop with acme 1235 prop vibration was gone soick prop was a oj

[Hallerkids]

On my rear 900 pound sacks I had one of the lower couplers break leaking water into the boat constantly. I would check the bag connectors

[Hallerkids]

My only other complaint with the boat is every time I hit 4500 rpm it would throw a cylinder misfire code.putting boat into limp mode. Never could figure out what was doing it but now with 50 hours on it I have no problem with that issue. Dealer told me I was being too hard on it

[decouttere]

This sounds exactly like my problem... if it gets fixed with a new prop, then that’d be an easy fix!

[decouttere]

The shaking sounds like a prop issue.
The leak sounds like you have a hose or connection loose from your in bow bag (I'm guessing you have the Surf Edition Helix?) OR you have an issue with your hard tank in the floor near the bow. With the Surf Edition Helix, the hard tank fills first, then it overflows into the front bow bag. It sounds like you have a loose connection between the hard tank and bow bag connections or an issue with the hard tank.

Thanks for the useful info!! We do have the surf edition and I wasn’t aware of the hard tank... so since the dealer replaced the front bag already and checked all connections they could easily check, I’m afraid the leak is somewhere on or near the hard tank (which matches with the leaking sounds I hear under the floor). I’m afraid this will not be an easy fix and hate to see the boat with the dealer in the middle of summer ... also just a shame Moomba delivers this, should have been checked. It’s not like these Moomba’s are super low budget boats neither.

[dakota4ce]

Thanks for the useful info!! We do have the surf edition and I wasn’t aware of the hard tank... so since the dealer replaced the front bag already and checked all connections they could easily check, I’m afraid the leak is somewhere on or near the hard tank (which matches with the leaking sounds I hear under the floor). I’m afraid this will not be an easy fix and hate to see the boat with the dealer in the middle of summer ... also just a shame Moomba delivers this, should have been checked. It’s not like these Moomba’s are super low budget boats neither.

Sometimes stuff doesn’t show up until the user gets it out into the lake....this I would consider very minor! They’ll pop that floor up and knock it out for you.


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