The search continues

Considering the fact that new boats, especially those in the cruiser, yacht or high performance categories, can become significantly more expensive going up 1-2 feet in length, this is intellectually dishonest, misleading, and well - slimy.

In essence, that 260 Sundancer in later years was effectively the same boat and length as prior years 240 Sundancer model.  As the first two digits represented the boat’s length, there were some surprises to be had, with people saying their ’26’ boat’ didn’t seem to have much more room than their prior 24 foot boat.  Well - that’s because in fact, it did not.  

Besides the general disgust at this practive, what does this mean for people looking in the used market?  Well, for starters, always try to find the official specifications, especially if unsure at what point a given manufacturer jumped onboat the size lie.  Owner’s manuals and online specifications should have them.  If in doubt, it’s also worth considering the boat’s weight and comparing it to prior years or even competing manufacturers - if a boat got singificantly lighter going from one year to the next, it might well be the year they started relabeling their 24-foot models as 26-footers etc.  Note - this is not just a Sea Ray thing, and it spans all models.  I’m unsure who first started it, but if like me, you’re looking for a specific length boat for a reason - it’s one more ’surprise’ to be aware of out there.

The good news for us, I suppose, is we weren't spending ’the big bucks,’ generally looking at late 90s boats, so we were generally clear of the start of the size games, but it was still something I looked at with every ‘possible’ boat I came across.  Actually, the SDA 270 was a measured 29’8” in length, so does that mean owners of older boats can say, “Hey, nice 290, mine’s a 300!”? :)  

I suppose we could have looked at 28 footers, but our local Falls Lake isn’t huge.  It’s good-sized at 12000 acres, but compared to Lake Jordan or Lake Norman with 32000 acres along with private and commercial properties on the lake, it’s different, as well as having some shallower areas as well as my own relative inexperience at piloting larger boats. 

At this point and hundreds of searches later, including looking at the actual layouts of each brand and model versus how I anticipated us using it, I really liked the ‘port side lounger’ layout on deck.  The majority of the time would be my wife and I, and occasionally another couple, so for normal cruising time, having a longer lounger on the port side right across from the helm and captain’s chair - really made sense for us.

Besides Sea Ray, I had really started to like Chris Craft or Crownline as the other main contenders, at least in the 27’ category.  I can’t say why exactly, but both just seemed to really have had some thought go into some of the little details of layout and usability among other things, but they were also fairly difficult to find in the right ranges of price and options anywhere nearby.  

I still kept Chapparal in there along with Sea Ray.  Undoubtedly there is a brand war to be waged out there somewhere, with Chapparal sometimes having some ‘upgrade’ options over some Sea Rays, and they do look nice, plus offer the MAG version engines vs Sea Rays typical 5.0L on the smaller 26’ cruisers.  So it’s entirely possible Chapparal may have some bit of an edge on the options front, but Sea Ray has been building boats a very long time - which is also seen in resale values.  For me, I would consider either of them (or Crownline or Chris Craft) as equivalent enough and let the right boat among any of these brands - be the one we went with.