By Capt. Randy Emmerman

The Elegante has cruising and entertaining designed from bow to stern. The boat has nice lines that scream “Take me for a boat ride!” I recently had the pleasure of traveling to Canada and testing the newest model near where these cruisers are built and testing it on the fresh waters of the Canadian Georgian Bay.

The Features

Top side, she offers two separate built-in couches in addition to a two person wide helm seat. The loungers offer plenty of seating along with a cocktail table and wet bar. All of this and she still has easy access to the swim platform. The extended swim platform provides lots of accessibility along with built-in bumper holders and two storage lockers for keeping lines and shore hook-ups handy. She even has room for a dingy or personal water craft in back.

Functional Layout

The helm has good visibility of your surroundings and your gauges. The helm seat has a flip up bolster for enhanced visibility out of the hole or for standing while driving. The cabin can be entered through a slider with a built in screen door which is a nice feature for cool evenings or when the mosquitoes are buzzing around. Climb down a few solid wood stairs and you are ready for relaxing or entertaining. To starboard at the bottom of the stairs is the power distribution panel. The panel has all your breakers, shore power and generator options and digital read outs of water supply and voltages.

Stepping Below

The cabin has an abundance of natural light from eight port holes, three hatches and a skylight. The galley includes cherry wood cabinets and a two-burner stove, microwave and a matching marine refrigerator. The counter top is a nice selection of Corian. The cabin floor has a molded fiberglass liner with carpet and a teak and holly sole for the galley. There are two loungers inside that provide plenty of seating for your company to sit and chat, or relax and watch a movie on the flat screen TV. To aft of the cabin is a stateroom with a full size privacy door, not a sliding curtain that you find in most boats. In addition, the aft stateroom also has a separate sink.

The Elegante has plenty of optional extras to enhance your ride. For instance; a forward bow mahogany lounge, retractable radar arch and power assist cocktail tables are just a few of the many options. See your dealer for the extensive list of options. The boat we tested was loaded with plenty of extras making her even more enjoyable to ride.

Power Plant

Last, but not least, was the engine room. You gain access through a day hatch. When you require complete access there are two power assist engine hatches to give all the room you or a mechanic needs. With the hatches open you had plenty of light and room to service the engines. The engine room was well laid out with neatly secured wiring and accessible batteries. Furthermore, even with the optional generator there was still room to spare.

Specs

Doral’s Elegante for 2005 measures in at 36’10” length overall and has a full 11’11” beam. She requires a clearance below of 3’8” with the outdrives in the up position and weighs in at approximately 15,200 pounds dry. She carries up to 230 gallons of fuel for a nice long weekend of cruising. Her 44 gallon fresh water tank is larger than most I have seen in her class, so water for rinsing off after a swim will not have to be used as sparingly.

The Ride

The performance numbers for this boat speak for themselves. With twin MerCruisers, she cruises at 3000 rpms traveling 32.5mph with a fuel burn of 28.1 gallons per hour. This gives you a cruising range of 239 miles on a full tank of fuel. At wide-open-throttle turning 4600 rpm she ran 47.9mph and will deliver a range of 157. Sound levels were comfortable starting at 68 dBa and up to 88 dBa at wide-open-throttle. She is on plane in just 7.3 seconds and cruising along at thirty miles per hour in 11.3 seconds.

If you are considering a mid range cruiser built by a company of boaters with options to personalize her to your specifications, put the Elegante from Doral on your list of must see express cruisers.

• Top speed for the Doral Elegante is 47.9 mph (77.1 kph), burning 63.0 gallons per hour (gph) or 238.46 liters per hour (lph).


• Best cruise for the Doral Elegante is 32.5 mph (52.3 kph), and the boat gets 1.15 miles per gallon (mpg) or 0.49 kilometers per liter (kpl), giving the boat a cruising range of 239 miles (384.63 kilometers).


• Tested power is 2 x 375-hp MerCruiser 496 Mag MPI.