KStruglia
Member
- Oct 18, 2010
- 40
- Boat Info
- 2006 300 Sundancer
- Engines
- Twin 350 Mag MPI Horizon's,
Bravo III
I am a newbie looking for a boat and would really welcome any thoughts, suggestions and/or opinions. Here is my situation: I have a family of 4 – wife, 11 yr old son and 1 year old son (they will be closer to 12 and 2 by the time I get a boat for next season). Live in South Eastern PA, and would plan to keep my boat at a marina somewhere on the Chesapeake Bay (no trailering) - considering SkipJack Cove (on the Sassafras River) or Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbour (opinions about these marinas?). Would like to get something that would allow us to do some extended trips or weekend overnighters. I had one boat in my time, a 20’ cuddy, but that was almost 20 years ago, so I consider myself new to boating again. I have looked a lot of boats online as well as a few at some dealers/marina’s recently. I’m looking for something fairly new (thinking 2004-2006) for reliability/maintenance reasons. When I started my search, I was thinking of something around 24’, and then I worked my way up to 26’, now my wife is pushing me to 28’ minimum, and maybe something bigger, because the Sea Ray dealer convinced her that the 280 was way more stable than a 260, and he showed her a brand spankin’ new 310 – who wouldn’t want that! I think a 280 Sundancer is a good fit for us right now as it can sleep 4, seems to be more stable than a 260, has twin engines which appear to be good for safety reasons as well as docking (although I have never had the experience of driving a boat with twins). So far, we have looked at several brands and seem to be hooked on Sea Ray. I see that most people generally feel like a bigger boat is better, but I am a bit concerned about having too big of a boat for a first boat, and I really don’t want to sit at the dock every weekend because the boat is too hard to handle or burns too much gas. Thoughts/opinions on boat size or other considerations would be appreciated.