In this age of increasingly generic brands with most automobiles and many boats
looking virtually the same, it is a pleasant surprise to find a builder who gives
the consumer a choice not only of engine brands but also of engine types in the
same model! Seaswirl is one of only two major builders offering a 21’ walkaround in both
an outboard or stern drive configuration. But now that we are given the option,
which one is best? That’s the trouble with having a choice – consumers need to think
about what they really need, what would be the advantages and disadvantages of each.
We’ll give you our take on these two models, but we’d like to hear from you as well
– outboard or stern drive? --
Some of the most popular videos we have offered in this
newsletter over the last couple of months has been our series on boating safety
equipment and trailering tips. Little wonder, since about 78% of the boats that
are owned are trailerable and 126,000 new boat trailers were sold last year. Even
veterans can use a quick brush-up course on the basics. Capt. Steve takes us through
the required USCG safety items and step-by-step trailer procedures. (Be prepared
to take notes.) Make sure everyone in your family sees these basic videos because
these tips are good for a lifetime. They are all brought to you courtesy of the
folks at Allstate Insurance.
Speed has always been the foul temptress of power boating.
Everyone wants to go faster than they “bought,” and for over 50 years fuel was cheap.
Global Positioning System (GPS) stimulated boaters’ interest in speed as everyone
could measure it a tenth of a mile per hour. At the same time, fuel mileage was
rarely, if ever, a concern, nor could most boaters easily measure it. If speed is
the foul temptress, then fuel efficiency has been the proverbial, red-headed stepchild
-- until now. Last summer’s soaring fuel prices have changed the very speed mania
of
millions of boat owners. Customers, who once, wanted every scintilla of speed they
could muster, are now looking to maximize their boat’s fuel efficiency and range,
instead.
Just as with any aspect of boat’s performance, the propeller holds the key--unlock
your mouse.
The new paradigm of the age is affordability and practicality
first, and Trophy’s new “Rolled Gunnel Series” certainly meets that criteria. With
a boat, 90-hp motor, and trailer package, all three, for $15k. It is a “hose-and-go”
fishing or utility boat that is ideal for casual fisherman in protected waters or
youngsters learning the ropes with their first boat. And if you are one of those
busy types who would like to go fishing now and then – the Trophy is so inexpensive
you won’t feel guilty leaving her on the trailer for weeks on end. Surprisingly,
there is more to this new boat than a low price. Let us fill you in --
With the new 232 Limited, Yamaha has taken its popular, innovative 23 boat and turned
it into a thing of stately beauty. Not that she was a wallflower before, she has
always been a very pretty design. But now, with her “Desert Stone” topsides, tasteful
gray vinyl seats and classy accessories she has matured from a flashy prom queen
into an elegant young woman who doesn’t have to flaunt her attributes to make a
man’s pulse quicken. This boat is no fiberglass bathtub gussied up with lipstick.
Rather, she is a work of art vying for the reputation as classiest woman on the
lake. Cobalt, you’d better watch out. And how cool is it having twin, reliable Yamaha
engines instead of a single I/O? Our Capt. John Wenz is a connoisseur of fine boat lines, so watch
him as he rubs his hand over this lady’s curves --
The first Boston Whaler was introduced at the New York Boat Show in 1958. It was
only 13’ long, but it started a revolution that in a few years swept the country.
Then, along came color TV (1966), the Apple II personal computer (1977), cell phones
(1984), and the Internet (1992). Now after 51 years, it is time for a new 13’ Boston
Whaler. It is called the 130 Super Sport and it comes in trendy colors. Colors?
Yup, that stodgy old boat company that insists on making boats that won’t sink --
no matter how big they are -- has discovered five of them. They have also created
a new design and come up with a lot of innovative new ideas for that 13-footer that
started it all. Most exciting is the introductory base price on the
boat of $9,995 with a 40-hp Merc. The 13’ Whaler has always made a great boat for
the kids, something that Mom can knock about in, or a safe, inexpensive platform
for all sorts of watersports play. To find out about the innovate new ideas on this old standby concept
-- douse your mouse.
This is perhaps the best video in Tigé’s series of promotional videos showing how
their boats perform under actual ski and wakeboard conditions. Our trusty skipper,
“Capt. Cool,” takes the boat through a series of maneuvers as easy as you please,
usually steering with only one finger. “We ask buyers to test the competition and
then come to us,” said a spokesman for the company recently. “We know they’ll fall
in love with how our boats handle.” That is pretty bold talk in this environment,
but if you will watch this video, you might see what Tigé folks mean. Watch and hold on --
Last month there were nearly 600,000 visits to BoatTEST.com from the U.S. and all
over the world. New and used boat buyers come to research performance data and see
our Captain’s independent, 3rd party opinions on boats they test and review. BoatTEST
is also the best place on the Internet to compare boats and engines specifications
and performance – all on one, easy to use website. This week we added yet another
free service for our readers – news, fresh from our captains’ computers as they
write it. You will find this “Top News” feature right above our “Keyword Search”
window. You no longer have to wait for our weekly e-newsletter to get your
fix of the latest on the powerboating scene. You can simply get it by going to
our homepage
and looking at the “Top News” scroll.
If you haven’t tried out “Keyword Search”, this is another great way to get specific
information you want. If we don’t have a match to your query, then Google software
kicks in and it searches the whole Internet for you.
Sounds too fast to be true, right? Well, that’s what we
got and we are standing by it. After all, the Yamaha FZS’s 1812 cc engine has 21%
more displacement than the next largest production PWC on the market and the unit
weights only 1% more. Nevertheless, measuring the acceleration of a high-performance
watercraft with conventional radar technology to a 10th of a second is not easy.
(The blink of an eye is from a 3/10ths to 4/10ths of a second.) So, to stay ahead
of the game we’re acquiring a new system called the Stalker ATS with the “STATS”
software, which measures down to 100th of a second and plots it automatically on
a computer without human intervention. This spring we will be testing PWCs again
with the new gear and we’ll keep you posted as we get the new numbers down to 1/100th
of a second. While 0-30 times are crucial factors for a small niche of the market,
there is a lot more that should go into a PWC buying decision. After all, in the
real world, how important is a second? Over the course of a year, we look at virtually
all of the PWCs in the market and we can tell you that a few 10ths of a second of
acceleration difference isn’t what you should be concerned about – there are far
more important issues. Things like durability, fit and finish, safety features,
warranty, and customer service are all more important in our book. Capt. John Wenz
takes his testing seriously and has taken a thorough look at the FZS and put it
all on video as well as producing a detailed written Captain’s Report. Read Capt John’s full report --
2008 Sun Tracker Party Barge 18s are selling
for $2,372 off.
2008 Nitro 640LX has a discount of $2,192.
Note the picture above is of the X-4.
2008 Tahoe Q45 I/O
has a
$2,902 discount.
A promotion started last month by Tracker Marine states
that their dealers are selling new boats for “below dealer invoice.” The company
says that the nationwide sale will go on until May 20th. Boats shown on the Tracker
website are 2008 models. Tracker Marine is the largest single brand of boats
sold in the U.S. and they have hundreds of dealers across the country, including
their huge Bass Pro Shoppes, which is the parent company. The company specializes
in building “affordable” boats. Tracker dealers are well known for working on very
thin margins, on the order of 11% to 13%, we’re told. While virtually all boat builders
are featuring big discounts these days, few have gone so far as to say that they
are selling for below dealer invoice. Tracker Marine builds Tracker bass and fishing
boats, Sun
Tracker pontoon boats, Tahoe sportboats and deckboats, Nitro bass boats,
and Mako fishing boats.
To find out more and how to find a local dealer --
Fastest Time
To Plane Smoker Craft
182 Pro Mag
150-hp Mercury
2.3 Seconds
View Test
--
Fastest
0 to 30 mph Crestliner Tournament Series 192 SC
200-hp Mercury
4.3 Seconds
View Test --
This week we are looking at aluminum fishing
boats. Over the last several years we have tested 65 aluminum fishing boats from
nine major manufacturers, both bass and multi-specie units. Some of these
boats are no longer in production under the designation that we tested them several
years ago, but we assure you that most live on with a new name in a slightly altered color
scheme and name. If there are faster or more fuel efficient boats out there, we haven’t tested them. Of course performance isn’t the only criteria
you should use when buying a new boat – warranty, features, construction, durability,
re-sale value and customer service are all more important reasons. To find out the specific engine models involved, click
on the tests. Two weeks ago we took a look at fiberglass
bass boats in much the same way. Aluminum or fiberglass, these days the consumer
has a lot to choose from. To help you sort it out hundreds of options, use BoatTest.com’s
database of over 100 freshwater fishing boats from most major brands.
BoatTEST.com measures the top speed of boats we test (so long as our testing captain
feels it is safe), but please don’t misconstrue this into thinking that we are encouraging
high-speed boat operation. Au contraire! BoatTEST.com promotes only the safe operation
of boats, which in many cases means that they should NOT
be driven at their top
speeds. We encourage boaters to discover what their “best cruise” speed is for comfort,
fuel economy and safety. In fact we think that going 70 mph in a small boat, such
as a bass boat, is nuts. And we are glad to see that responsible builders are not
encouraging excessive speed. The USCG says that excessive speed is the #3 cause
of boating accidents. To see the USCG Accident statistics and to find out what happened
to Donald Campbell --
Mako News
Makos Come with Evinrudes, Too!
This is our favorite picture
of a Mako 264 which was widely seen a few years ago.
We were driving down the highway last weekend and noticed a boat dealer with new
Makos
powered with Evinrude engines instead of the usual black power. We couldn’t make
“U”-turn fast enough to find out what was going on. For years we had only seen Mercury
outboards on the back of new Makos.
The dealer said he had ordered them with Evinrude’s
because he had good success with the engines and he thought they’d help sell the
boats. Yesterday a Tracker Marine spokesman told us that even though all promotional
and advertising pictures of Makos shows them with Mercury outboard engines, people
could order them with other brands as well, in addition to Mercury. To find your local Mako dealer--
One of the unpleasant discoveries made when commissioning time arrives is the abundance
of mold and mildew that has grown on cushions, bulkheads, fabrics and in dark, hard
to reach places in your boat. Mold can be a health hazard and it will certainly
spread if it isn’t removed. Once the mold and mildew are properly removed, then
you have to take steps to keep it from coming back. For more information about mold and how to get rid of it--
Last month a 20-year veteran tugboat captain fell overboard in the frigid waters
of British Columbia -- in broad daylight from his slow moving tug, which kept on
moving. About a month later (last week) on the opposite side of North America a
41-year old fisherman fell overboard off his small fishing boat off the panhandle
coast
of Florida – he was all alone and his boat kept on moving away. Both fell overboard for
different reasons, and both were rescued in different ways. And both broke cardinal
rules of good seamanship. Both men had been boating long enough to know the lessons,
yet – being human – they, we suspect, regularly disregarded them. Read a Tale of Two MOBs --
Why has it taken the human race so long to invent something so practical, so necessary
and so cheap as the revolutionary P-Mate? We predict that it will change a wife’s
or girlfriend’s reluctance to join her man boating. Truth be told – that is the
real reason why many women don’t want to go boating in the first place! Most women boaters
we know would be happy to have a P-Mate for those unexpected emergencies that invariably
occur on a small boat just when the walleye start biting. We can’t think of any
invention, no matter how expensive that could get more women to “discover boating”
than the P-Mate. We hasten to add that BoatTEST.com’s trusty staff of female boaters
have not yet tested this clever-looking device, and we are NOT recommending it -- yet!
We just wanted to alert you that BoatTEST will be publishing a full report on its
pee-ability and pee-formance in a future issue. In the meantime, we’re sure you
would like to see pictures and a video of it in action -- avert your mouse.
Safety Tip
Indiana Jones'
(aka Capt. Steve)
Fueling Safety Tip
Over the years BoatTEST.com has periodically published articles about boat fires
and explosions. Most occur during or right after fueling a gasoline-powered boat.
We only run three of four of these articles a year, but the fact is that these accidents
occur every week or so during the season, and more often than you might guess off
season. Our readers like these articles, as they usually score #1 or #2 in readership.
You can imagine our surprise, then, when Capt. Steve’s Boating Lesson #32 last week
on safe fueling procedures scored third from last on readership! Do people think
safety tips are too Boy-Scout or boring? Well, Capt. Steve is anything but boring
-- if his female fan mail is any indication – so just in case you missed it, we’re going to replay his Indiana
Jones fueling safety tip (there will be a quiz!)--
This is the second installment of our four-part educational series on the history
of marine safety in the U.S. This week’s creator, Rear Admiral James A. Watson brings
us into the modern era telling us about relevant milestones in the advancement of
the prevention of accidents and telling us about some of the men who fought for
greater safety procedures. Rear Admiral Watson has a keen sense of history and by
watching his short video you will see how the USCG got to where it is today. To
see all four of the videos go to YouTube and type in “marine safety.”
This week Capt. Steve goes over fourteen new lessons and guidelines on pre-departure
checklists. You’ll learn why it’s important to file a float plan with someone who
will recognize if you haven’t returned home, why checking the weather before you
depart is essential especially on small boats, how to safely load your boat with
gear, and why routine checks on the engine, bilge and other systems is important.
These are basic procedures which all recreational boaters should be aware of. The
videos presented this week are part of Capt. Steve’s USCG-approved boating course
called “Smart Boating.” Watch Capt. Steve's video boating lessons every week on
BoatTEST.com.
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The dealer said he had ordered them with Evinrude’s
because he had good success with the engines and he thought they’d help sell the
boats. Yesterday a Tracker Marine spokesman told us that even though all promotional
and advertising pictures of Makos shows them with Mercury outboard engines, people
could order them with other brands as well, in addition to Mercury. 
