So bummed and frustrated. Year after year, waiting hopefully for something new and cool to come out, and then this thing. Another massive letdown.
My family climbed all over this boat on Saturday. My family is wanting a new larger boat since we often have many friends with us. My family actually declined to even waste time test driving the boat. And of course, the never ending salesman BS. My wife and kids were really bummed out. I wasn't happy either. Based on a lot of comments I overheard and from reading, this boat totally misses the mark.
For 99k, think about it, what do you really get?
1) 3 more feet
2) Not really that much more seating. You get larger seating areas, but not that you would actually use at once.
3) SVHO engines that are louder and suck even more gas, and all just to go 1mph faster.
4) More low speed gimmics because Yamaha still hasn't figured out there are way easier ways of doing this, they're just stubborn.
5) another half foot of draft, now 22".
Then 15k for a bimini tower/top? Another 15k so it's hard with a hole in it to let the sun back through (and, LOL, paddleshifters)? You can buy another small boat for 30k!!! Or two jet skis!
Don't even get me started on that super ugly windshield design. The boat overall does look really nice, but that windshield is just UGLY, it totally kills the whole boat. I know some of you have actually said you like it. I respectfully request you go have your eyes checked, maybe this is a sign you're due.
To those of you that think towing over 8'6" is not a big deal, please consider where you live. Don't trust your salesman. Consider that most of these boat companies that sell dual axle trailers in FL with brakes on only one axle are already selling you an illegal setup right off the lot so there's no reason to expect they're going to be truthful with you about overwide towing. In FL, over 8'6", you need an annual oversized $20 permit. You can apply online and this part is easy. But wait, there's more. You now also need flags at the front corners of your tow vehicle and the rear corners of the boat. But wait, there's more. Going to the keys? The rules change once you enter the keys and there's even a sign stating how the fl annual permit no longer applies!!!! Now you can only tow during the day. But wait, there's more. You are required to go through weigh stations on the keys. The nightmare stories are plentiful over on thehulltruth. Yes, lots of people get away with it, but also lots of people don't. I've driven past the roadblocks and seen the pulled over boats and the boats you clearly know are oversized and no flags, etc. Their weekends are ruined with the boat stuck on the side of the road, very expensive tickets, etc. Now they are stuck trying to get the permits (on a weekend?) or even trying to locate last minute, licensed haulers to try and get their boat to it's destinatation.
The competition is capable of building 27 bowriders that are only 8'6" wide and can sit as many and even more than the 275. Yamaha, why did go wider? Was it just so you could squeeze that walkthru in between the engines? It would be nice to understand the reasoning of why you did this. Seadoo went over 8'6" with their larger boats and they got beat up badly on the forums, and one has to wonder if that contributed to lost sales.
The main thing my family disliked with the 275 was the layout. My family hates captains chairs. They are so yesterday. Worse, with the passenger captains chair turned around, you couldn't open the head compartment anymore. Every time we tried to open the door, it kept getting caught on the carpet. The drivers chair was no better and the way they have that console there, once anchored, I'd bet most people wouldn't bother using either of those two chairs anymore.
Another thing we all disliked was actually seeing the 275 out on the water, it actually looked small and low to the water. It doesn't look like a dry boat or a boat I would take out in rougher seas.
So we moved on, extremely disappointed. At least the competition has woken up and is providing better and very competitively priced alternatives, in some cases, depending on how you configure, even cheaper (at least based on boat show pricing)!. Most of the competition now offers 27' bowriders and 8'6" wide. And, even better, without a top/tower, they fit through an 8' garage door! I would go with an outboard and that's a little more limiting. We'd narrowed it down to SeaRay, Four Winns, and Monterey. Ultimately my family fell in love with the Searay's. In the case of the SeaRays, there's even the possibiliyy we'd just go with the SDX 250 OB. The layouts and storage capacity was amazing on these boats. My family loved the Searay SDX 270 OB seat layout. No captain's chairs!!! Nice easily movable backrests (like the Yamaha 275's rear lounger) which made the main seating area ENORMOUS. You could still open the head compartment! I liked the bow of the 250 and the single larger compartment. I personally was leaning towards the FourWinns RS (styling mainly), but those [HASH=72]#$&$[/HASH]##$ing captains chairs, same problem there, turn the passenger seat around to face back and you couldn't open the head compartment anymore. I did love the Searays's dash with that large flat panel that was a customizers dream.
Yeah, I know, the competition is an outboard (or IO if you so choose), but there is a big part of me that is over jets. I am sick of the grass. Every trip to the keys I have to deal with grass clogging. I'm also sick of the noise and low end fuel economy. We spent sunday on a center console with twin yamahas OBs and headed down to boca chita and the sound is just that much lower and it's easier to hold conversations. I don't know if it's the pitch, freq, etc, but something about it is just better. Maybe it's just that the noise is completely outside the boat and there's only the engine cover whereas our engines our inside and the entire hull now becomes a part of the sound? I'd be giving up a few feet of the transom, but then wow, did the SeaRay and others offer a TON of storage beneath the transom seats since there's no more motor there! My daughter has gotten into scuba, and wow, we could store full gear for many people in there, all on the very back of the boat! Grass would also no longer be an issue, noise would be lower and fuel economy and range goes up. The boats top out at 48-49mph (and not using their max hp ratings either). The monterey I think even hit 55. And they all float in shallower water than the 275 (except of course the searay 270 which had the same 22" draft). And if we loved the boat that much and were keeping it a long time, repowering is an option. We can't repower any of our jetboats (or even the competitions jetboats) so at some point, I have to wonder just how long a jetboat really lasts. I can't remember the last time I saw an LS2000, or Challenger, or Speedster, etc. But then what keeps pulling me back to the jets, is I do love the NEUTRAL handling. I would really really miss being able to spin in place. Overall though, having been jetboating now for 19 years, to me at least, an outboard is way more forward than backwards steps.
The irony though is I don't actually like the SeaRay's styling. My family likes it. I don't hate it, I won't call it ugly, but it doesn't excite me either. As we left the marina on sunday, there was only one Yamaha in the water, but there were 3 SDXs. Two of them were 290 OBs with TWIN OBs. Down at Boca Chita I saw another 290 with twin outboards.
