Yeah....if this happens I bring it down to idle immediately. In neutral sitting still I can NOT move the wheel. Period. then after 5-10 mins of idle and pulling on it, it will free up and return to normal.

I put a new helm and cable in it this year. Must be the actuator. It does not leak a drop of fluid. Is it possible to have a reverse leak? Nothing out but pulling air in?

And also it is weird that up to upper 60's no prob. The best I have seen to date now is 70.8 mph and as soon as I get there I have issues. And again, it happens faster and is worse when running in a good chop!

i'm not sure your conclusion is correct. you think because when you immediatly power down it stays hard, therefore its a component issue as oppose to aereated fluid from cavitaion... but it would take some amount of time for the fluid to cool off and the air to come out of suspension and the fluid to become fluid again... exactly what that time you are sitting there waiting does... also... think about it... realistically how could a component unrelated to speed suddenly become speed sensitive ? all the steering knows is the revs its being spun at and the pressures that it makes... not how fast it goes. and a bad actuator would be bad at 60 as well as 70...

if you are saying in absolute terms that you can drive this boat for a 100 miles at 65 mph and everything is fine but the instant you get to that critical speed that the steering blows up... then that's revs related pump / pressure issue . i just can't see it being anything else... now if you want to say that its a bad pump related to presure at those revs... well who knows whats going on there... but i would still look at slowing the pump down... is it a stock pulley stack / pump deal or some aftermarket zoomy chrome thing...?

What your saying make total sense to me. It is a stock pulley system.

I had originally thought that air was the issue. I was just slightly confused as the system is full and has no leaks at all.

I guess wot in alot of chop could shake things up and leave an opening for the pump to grab some air.

This has just never happened to me in all of my years of boating and I have gone way faster with stock stering. That is why I was asking for help....

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts! I appreciate it!

Go full Hyd
 

I just installed a full hyd steering system on my 24 Python and the difference from stock is amazing. The boat was scary above 65. Now I can take my hands off the wheel at 60-80 and the boat goes strait as an arrow. Look for deals on this site. Total price for my MM set up was 1800. You can save some serious money if you are handy with a wrench.

Lee

As soon as you slow down pull the cap off and see if its all foamed up, maybe the ps cooler is clogged?

Regardless I would start looking for a hydraulic system especially if you plan to keep the boat running in the 70's

I think I will as the goal is to reach 80 when my cash flow frees up a bit....(paying for my wedding is hurting the wallet a bit!!!)

I hear ya there id have a nice fastec if most of my money wasn't in the wedding account!

if she really loves you , she'll understand.

I had something similar but not exactly the same happen to me, when I would run in chop/rough water my steering would randomly temporarily get real stiff/quit moving without EXTREME force on my 272 single engine Baja, I went to twin ram full hydraulic and it would STILL do it but not as bad. Mine didn't take 5 minutes though to come back, usually if I backed down it was fine instantly or within a few seconds , In my case it turned out to be a combination of things, bilge water splashing on my accessories belt and the brackets procharger had me relocate my accessories and belt with would flex a little , belt had to be tightened tighter than you would expect to not slip when it got any bilge water/slime on it and even then it would still do it but not as bad. The factory installed my bilge pump so high in bilge that you had to have 3- 4 plus inches of water before it would pump and even then it still had over 3 inches of water once it pumped down. I relocated the bilge pump and added a second one while I was at it and I keep my bilge dry and since then it never has happened to me again.
In your case the fact it takes 5 minutes to come back I think your fluid is foaming or something similar, I hope you figure it out, Smitty
I finally figured out my belts were getting wet in my case when I saw the voltage drop while it wouldn't steer as I have a common belt driving everything