Thoughts after first summer on a 400 after moving up from a 340

Stee6043 said:

In May of this year I parted ways with my '99 340 and got myself into a '97 400 just in time for the July 4th holiday. With three small kids it's a move the wife and I had been kicking around since our second year of having the 340.

So I thought I'd share some thoughts after our first summer with the bigger boat.

The first feature that was immediately life changing was the shower in the forward head. No more rearranging the bathroom to use the shower. No more walking to the marina bath house if you want a quick rinse before crashing at night. It seems so simple...but it is a real game changer. Similarly, having that second bathroom is nice. Kids can get up in the middle of the night and use their own head if needed.

Also life changing is the amount of beam and how that impacts maintenance. My first repair this year was the shower sump bilge pumps. There is gobs of room in the forward bilge areas. I had room to sit on the floor, beer by my side, feet in the bilge, and do my work. Even more roomy is the engine room, especially with gas engines. I had room to safely position a 5 gallon bucket between the engines for my oil changes and stand in front of both engines. By standing on the bilge floor everything is at a the perfect height. It was a pleasure to work on. The only exception to this being the generator.....which has turned into a Spring 2019 project based on horrible access . No worse than the 340 but surely not better.

Having solid doors on both cabins might be the second most impactful feature on the bigger boat. With small kids it's nice to ensure privacy at "certain times". The curtain style doors on the 340 didn't provide much....of anything.

As most would expect handling is quite different between the 340 and 400. My experience is that the 400 planes better, runs better in bigger seas and feels more bow-down. It just feels better balanced, everything being further forward maybe. On the flip side the 400 is more of a handful around the docks. I had 4 blade props on the 340, which the 400 also has, but I miss the authority of the 340 when steering with the trannys. I would put my docking confidence at 75-80% of what it was with the 340. More practice needed...perhaps more patience as well.

Overall we couldn't be more pleased with the move. Hopefully this is just enough boat to keep us happy until the kids stop wanting to hang out with us every weekend...

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Ezsteps said:

Roller my pictures are even showing up on my tablet. Can anyone else see them? Anyway back to the subject. Here are the pics I posted earlier.

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Stee6043 said:

As most would expect handling is quite different between the 340 and 400. My experience is that the 400 planes better, runs better in bigger seas and feels more bow-down. It just feels better balanced, everything being further forward maybe. On the flip side the 400 is more of a handful around the docks. I had 4 blade props on the 340, which the 400 also has, but I miss the authority of the 340 when steering with the trannys. I would put my docking confidence at 75-80% of what it was with the 340. More practice needed...perhaps more patience as well.

Overall we couldn't be more pleased with the move. Hopefully this is just enough boat to keep us happy until the kids stop wanting to hang out with us every weekend...

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RollerCoastr said:

Did your installer correctly link your RP-650 to the Garmin?

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sbw1 said:

I'm always amazed at the owners of big Sea Rays, and other nicely optioned boats who fail to take advantage of their airconditioned showers and heads. You see people trudging off to the "big house" every evening around happy hour to take a shower in a hot, well used public bathroom. Half an hour later, they are climbing back on their 40 foot SR or whatever, sweating like pigs.

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carterchapman said:

Now your next move needs to be to a 50-58DB!!

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midexp said:

Very cool EZ. Love how those speakers light up.

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carterchapman said:

I'm with you Stee...I loved my 340, but the move to my 410 was to a different world as you said! Shower/stateroom doors/AC/etc! Now your next move needs to be to a 50-58DB!!!

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Ezsteps said:

When we had the 310 that's what I did. When we bought the 400 I told my wife I will probably still use the marina shower unless we were traveling. I was wrong, I haven't taken a shower in a bathhouse since I bought this boat.

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sbw1 said:

I'm always amazed at the owners of big Sea Rays, and other nicely optioned boats who fail to take advantage of their airconditioned showers and heads. You see people trudging off to the "big house" every evening around happy hour to take a shower in a hot, well used public bathroom. Half an hour later, they are climbing back on their 40 foot SR or whatever, sweating like pigs. Early morning. Same thing. Why?

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Ezsteps said:

When we had the 310 that's what I did. When we bought the 400 I told my wife I will probably still use the marina shower unless we were traveling. I was wrong, I haven't taken a shower in a bathhouse since I bought this boat.

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Ezsteps said:

Not sure Roller, to be honest I don't really use my auto pilot much. I plan on upgrading it sometime to Garmin. I probably don't use any of it as much as I could.

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Ezsteps said:

I had the AP moved all the way to the left with plans for a 741 to be put in the center.

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RollerCoastr said:

Testing communication with the AP is simple: if you activate a route on the Garmin, bearing data will appear at the bottom of the RP-650 display. Of course, how well it works can be more complicated...

So here is the current state of my dash. I'm going to delay my plans to replace the AP, so the next step will probably be new burlwood panels and spacing-out the components. I'll keep the Garmins where they are and just make sure they're perfectly aligned, and then move the AP and the VHF toward the outside edges so it doesn't look so crowded. I can't wait to ditch the starboard backer for the VHF. It was hand-cut by me in a hurry, with non-routered edges. It does the job, but it's not pretty!

I think you'd like a 741, even though the 742 has several more features. The interface is more simple IMO - closer to that of the 740. The 742 has the interface of your 76, which I think is one of the less-friendly systems Garmin has produced.

The homescreen of the 741 is an updated version of the big blue tabs of the 740:

Note the Media button at the bottom center. Tap there, and you have a 7" touchscreen media interface:

This is of course does nothing that your 76 can't do, but the the difference to me is that by having it on a secondary display means I don't have to switch back to Nav right away, and if I want to, it's just one more tap.

I prefer the 742's engine/fuel display options. This is the 741. I haven't customized it:

I really like the fuel screen layouts on the 742:

Another 741 feature I like is this "Compass" display. I like it when I'm manually steering a route, which I do fairly often because of traffic (fishing boats) and when taking waves on the beam. I'll often stand up in heavy traffic, and as you know, the position of the 12" display on the 400's dash isn't standing-friendly. It's nice to be able glance down at this instead:

It looks strange now because I was just sitting at the dock with an active route when I snapped this shot, but underway, it's a nice quick reference, especially if I have the big display showing dedicated radar. (trying to find a pathway around the 300 fishing boats sitting directly in my path...)

Click to expand...

RollerCoastr said:

Testing communication with the AP is simple: if you activate a route on the Garmin, bearing data will appear at the bottom of the RP-650 display. Of course, how well it works can be more complicated...

So here is the current state of my dash. I'm going to delay my plans to replace the AP, so the next step will probably be new burlwood panels and spacing-out the components. I'll keep the Garmins where they are and just make sure they're perfectly aligned, and then move the AP and the VHF toward the outside edges so it doesn't look so crowded. I can't wait to ditch the starboard backer for the VHF. It was hand-cut by me in a hurry, with non-routered edges. It does the job, but it's not pretty!

I think you'd like a 741, even though the 742 has several more features. The interface is more simple IMO - closer to that of the 740. The 742 has the interface of your 76, which I think is one of the less-friendly systems Garmin has produced.

The homescreen of the 741 is an updated version of the big blue tabs of the 740:

Note the Media button at the bottom center. Tap there, and you have a 7" touchscreen media interface:

This is of course does nothing that your 76 can't do, but the the difference to me is that by having it on a secondary display means I don't have to switch back to Nav right away, and if I want to, it's just one more tap.

I prefer the 742's engine/fuel display options. This is the 741. I haven't customized it:

I really like the fuel screen layouts on the 742:

Another 741 feature I like is this "Compass" display. I like it when I'm manually steering a route, which I do fairly often because of traffic (fishing boats) and when taking waves on the beam. I'll often stand up in heavy traffic, and as you know, the position of the 12" display on the 400's dash isn't standing-friendly. It's nice to be able glance down at this instead:

It looks strange now because I was just sitting at the dock with an active route when I snapped this shot, but underway, it's a nice quick reference, especially if I have the big display showing dedicated radar. (trying to find a pathway around the 300 fishing boats sitting directly in my path...)

Click to expand...

Stee6043 said:

I am immensely jealous of your setup. That's a great looking dash. So much functionality! This is turning out to be a very expensive (future) thread for me I fear....

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Blkbird said:

Oddly enough my Admiral had me remove the old ice maker and replace it with a "beverage center". She didn't like the idea of ice made from water held in a 20 year old tank and the beverage center keeps the kids from running up and down to the cabin just to get a soda. Or a beer for the Captain.

Click to expand...

RollerCoastr said:

Testing communication with the AP is simple: if you activate a route on the Garmin, bearing data will appear at the bottom of the RP-650 display. Of course, how well it works can be more complicated...

So here is the current state of my dash. I'm going to delay my plans to replace the AP, so the next step will probably be new burlwood panels and spacing-out the components. I'll keep the Garmins where they are and just make sure they're perfectly aligned, and then move the AP and the VHF toward the outside edges so it doesn't look so crowded. I can't wait to ditch the starboard backer for the VHF. It was hand-cut by me in a hurry, with non-routered edges. It does the job, but it's not pretty!

I think you'd like a 741, even though the 742 has several more features. The interface is more simple IMO - closer to that of the 740. The 742 has the interface of your 76, which I think is one of the less-friendly systems Garmin has produced.

The homescreen of the 741 is an updated version of the big blue tabs of the 740:

Note the Media button at the bottom center. Tap there, and you have a 7" touchscreen media interface:

This is of course does nothing that your 76 can't do, but the the difference to me is that by having it on a secondary display means I don't have to switch back to Nav right away, and if I want to, it's just one more tap.

I prefer the 742's engine/fuel display options. This is the 741. I haven't customized it:

I really like the fuel screen layouts on the 742:

Another 741 feature I like is this "Compass" display. I like it when I'm manually steering a route, which I do fairly often because of traffic (fishing boats) and when taking waves on the beam. I'll often stand up in heavy traffic, and as you know, the position of the 12" display on the 400's dash isn't standing-friendly. It's nice to be able glance down at this instead:

It looks strange now because I was just sitting at the dock with an active route when I snapped this shot, but underway, it's a nice quick reference, especially if I have the big display showing dedicated radar. (trying to find a pathway around the 300 fishing boats sitting directly in my path...)

Click to expand...