When you went bigger

Assuming most of you started off smaller, what was the determining factor on going bigger, kids, more ammentities, wanting twins, ego boost, and did you do it when a repower was necessary on your previous vessel? Did you go up 3 to 5 feet, did you go up 10 to 15 ft and opt for diesels etc. Did you go older to get more size and diesels or stay newer to get more modern ammentities? This is entirely just out of curiosity.

Okay, I'll bite. We went from first boat, 28 Searay Sundancer which we sold due to relocation to a down size 21 Crownline Cuddy. Two years later found ourselves wanting to spend weekends on the lake so we went to a new Rinker 270 Fiesta Vee with all the bells and whistles. Four years later we found that we were weekending more, hosting another couple and the cabin was just a bit tight for that.(snoring and other natural events) Along came a deal of a lifetime on a fire sale 2008 Rinker 350 which offered quite a bit more space but five years later and a move to Bay and Delta boating found us really wanting a boat with cabin doors and two heads so we went deep with the purchase of a 2006 Searay 44 DB. Now 5 years later we are considering moving to 55 Pilot house for coastal cruising. Long and short of it we made moves for very real and considered reasons and have been relatively fortunate not to take major financial hits when moving up. We only used a broker once to sell and actually ended up trading our last boat in at a premium due to a broker screwup. I can honestly say that with all of the boats each move was a pleasure and we never experienced any buyers remorse or feeling that we made a mistake.
Carpe Diem

Carpediem44DB said:

Okay, I'll bite. We went from first boat, 28 Searay Sundancer which we sold due to relocation to a down size 21 Crownline Cuddy. Two years later found ourselves wanting to spend weekends on the lake so we went to a new Rinker 270 Fiesta Vee with all the bells and whistles. Four years later we found that we were weekending more, hosting another couple and the cabin was just a bit tight for that.(snoring and other natural events) Along came a deal of a lifetime on a fire sale 2008 Rinker 350 which offered quite a bit more space but five years later and a move to Bay and Delta boating found us really wanting a boat with cabin doors and two heads so we went deep with the purchase of a 2006 Searay 44 DB. Now 5 years later we are considering moving to 55 Pilot house for coastal cruising. Long and short of it we made moves for very real and considered reasons and have been relatively fortunate not to take major financial hits when moving up. We only used a broker once to sell and actually ended up trading our last boat in at a premium due to a broker screwup. I can honestly say that with all of the boats each move was a pleasure and we never experienced any buyers remorse or feeling that we made a mistake.
Carpe Diem

Click to expand...

You know, I guess the major remorse would come in if you went from a relatively seemingly issue free boat and ended up with a nightmare. I like your story, and I'm happy its all working out for you.
Tempus Fugit

PlumCrazy4spd said:

You know, I guess the major remorse would come in if you went from a relatively seemingly issue free boat and ended up with a nightmare. I like your story, and I'm happy its all working out for you.
Tempus Fugit

Click to expand...

Yeah, not hard to find heart break stories like that. One of my best friends sold his beloved 97 400 Sedan Bridge with big block gassers to upgrade to a 420 SD with diesels only to have one of the engines drop a valve on his first cruise. Cost him $32,000 in repairs. Three years later he occasionally laments ever selling his 400 that he owned for 18 years. One just can't know what the future holds for sure.

PlumCrazy4spd said:

Assuming most of you started off smaller, what was the determining factor on going bigger, kids, more ammentities, wanting twins, ego boost, and did you do it when a repower was necessary on your previous vessel? Did you go up 3 to 5 feet, did you go up 10 to 15 ft and opt for diesels etc. Did you go older to get more size and diesels or stay newer to get more modern ammentities? This is entirely just out of curiosity.

Click to expand...

For us we had three kids young in age we were getting back into boating after taking some time off to buy a house, Start a family etc... We got back into it with a 230 DA We started to do over nighters , Then weekends, Long weekends. After 3 months the Admiral said to me WE NEED A BIGGER BOAT!
Once i got the green light I traded up to a new 290 DA. I took some good boating course's and we started to travel. Im located on the south shore of Long Island so we would do Montauk PT, Block Island , Newport RI, etc. It was Five years later the kids were getting older and the boat was getting smaller, Now they want to bring friends! So after five years i sold the 290DA and bought the 390 EC witch I'm still in after 22 years. I had a friend tell me many years ago when you buy a boat GET THE BIGGEST ONE YOU CAN AFFORD ! AN THEN GO A LITTLE BIGGER.You will save a lot of money in between, he was right .lol Now i'm getting closer to the big Viking send off. AW!Where did the time Go...

Carpediem44DB said:

bit tight for that.(snoring and other natural events)
Carpe Diem

Click to expand...

Natural events I see what you did there hahah

I went from a 340 to a 400. Wife and three kids aboard every weekend. The biggest draw for us was the second head, full shower and solid doors on both the mid cabin and the master berth. Privacy is worth the price in upgrading.

I did go 2 years older when I made my move. But in terms of Sea Ray styling it was a lateral shift from 99 to 97, same models and styling.

I'm cheap and average 50 hours of runtime per year in Michigan. So diesels were not on my list of must-haves. And coming from a 340 with bigblocks I was in absolute heaven working on a 400 with gassers. I could stick two more kids in the engine room if I needed too...

Stee6043 said:

I went from a 340 to a 400. Wife and three kids aboard every weekend. The biggest draw for us was the second head, full shower and solid doors on both the mid cabin and the master berth. Privacy is worth the price in upgrading.

I did go 2 years older when I made my move. But in terms of Sea Ray styling it was a lateral shift from 99 to 97, same models and styling.

I'm cheap and average 50 hours of runtime per year in Michigan. So diesels were not on my list of must-haves. And coming from a 340 with bigblocks I was in absolute heaven working on a 400 with gassers. I could stick two more kids in the engine room if I needed too...

Click to expand...

That's awesome. And the separate shower in ny opinion would be a huge determining factor.

We went from day boat to cruiser when we got tired of packing up and having to leave the marina on Saturdays. Everyone else on the dock was cracking open cold ones, settling in for a fun night on the docks and were were saying our goodbyes and see you tomorrows.....hello 340 Sundancer followed by "it's getting too small for our growing kids." So we traded it in and for a diesel 44 Sundancer. If your family is into boating (especially the wife) and it's going to be your recreational focus then you might as well do what makes sense...No regrets

My story is similar. I have had boats my whole life of various sizes but mostly small in the 10-20ft range. When I met my wife we had a 18ft Monterey that I bought off a buddy when he moved out of state. It was a good little bow rider but we really beat the hell out of it with 6-8 people on board every weekend and running it in the ocean when it was more of a lake boat. I wanted a larger boat with a small cabin to weekend on and a head so we bought a 2000 Searay 260OV which we trailered for 6 years. That was a great boat and it did everything we needed it to do. We got a slip back in 2010 when the market was bad and people were getting out of boating (slips are near impossible to fine on Cape Cod). We had the 260 in the slip for 1 season and we wanted something bigger to stay on and make use of the slip more so we upgraded to a 2005 340DA. That was an awesome boat. We put 600hrs and 15k miles on it over 6 years. Of course I wanted a larger boat and diesels for sure so we could stay on moorings and not worry as much about CO killing us. As my 2 daughters where getting bigger it was obvious that more room would make it more comfortable for all. I wanted them to want to be down on the boat with us through their teenage years so something with Separate staterooms for them was the goal. We looked at the 420DB and like them a lot but I really had my heart set on a 520DB. The boat I have now was on the market for over a year way over priced. About the time I started looking seriously to upgrade they dropped the price to something realistic. I just needed a larger slip to accommodate it. I had to wait 1 summer till Sept to confirm That we could have a larger slip for the next season and hope the boat didn’t sell. It didn’t and once we got the go ahead for the slip upgrade we were able to make a deal on it and sell My 340DA to the first person that looked at it.
I really love all the space, diesels and everything the 520DB does for us. The kids are now 10 and 12 and love being on the boat. We spend about 50-60 nights on it a season (April - Oct) with most of that time jammed into June - Aug putting about 120hrs on it.

We started out with smaller boats too. Mostly center consoles on trailers and lots of day trips. As the kids got a little older they wanted to stay out overnight after playing with other kids all day and not pack up and go home.

They were still young and we moved up to a 260DA that we kept in a slip (which was the first time not trailering for us). That changed everything for us in the way of boating as the boat was used a whole lot more - even when just at our home marina. Then as the kids grew the 260DA was not going to fit our needs so we moved up to our current 340SDA.

Again, this was a big improvement and again dramatically expanded our use of the boat. Now my kids are older - 1 in college and 1 a senior in HS and they are not with us as much so the 340SDA is plenty of boat for my wife and me. They love the boat and hang out on it regularly but don't travel with us much.

So now we start talking about the future and possibly moving up to something bigger. We have no real idea yet but a 420/440 looks appealing - especially to expand our cruising range and adding the second head and a separate wet shower. We are still enjoying our boat and I really don't want to change things from a financial standpoint - especially with a few more years of college ahead. Also upgrading at this point means moving docks and I am happy where I am.

Meanwhile I also missed the convenience and fun of center console so I went out and picked up a Proline Center Console

We'll continue to throw around the discussion and who knows by the time we decide to do something it may even be a downsize. Life changes fast and it is best to be flexible.

-Kevin

brewster16 said:

We went from day boat to cruiser when we got tired of packing up and having to leave the marina on Saturdays. Everyone else on the dock was cracking open cold ones, settling in for a fun night on the docks and were were saying our goodbyes and see you tomorrows.....hello 340 Sundancer followed by "it's getting too small for our growing kids." So we traded it in and for a diesel 44 Sundancer. If your family is into boating (especially the wife) and it's going to be your recreational focus then you might as well do what makes sense...No regrets

Click to expand...

No family no admiral yet. For now the 270 fits the bill. Obviously wouldn't mind going bigger. It's a little older but with that comes the wider beam and twins oppos to the newer 270's. First boat, wanted to get an idea of annual run costs, maintenance costs etc. I'll tell.you I cannot wait to get into direct shaft of v drive boat though lol.

Just in the last five years or so, 270 Sundancer , carb 454, that was 33 feet overall (big swim platform), then on to a 2800 Maxum, fuel injected 454 (more room in cabin) then a 32 Bayliner with twin volvo gassers, (more of everything). Enough baby steps..... present boat 500da, big diesel power, big master stateroom, big salon, big big big...… Who knows whats next?

320 to 500. Kids getting bigger was the major factor. Needing more sleeping space, 2nd head etc. Now our 1st is off to college. I don't see us downsizing anytime soon though!!

I started off with a couple bow riders... we would sleep in a custom van in the parking lot of the marina. Got tired of that and bought the 270 which we trailered for a while. Eventually got a slip for it. Kept the 270 for 7 or 8 years and wanted to go bigger, so the current 310 was it (can't lie, ego was part of it!). We've had it now for 10 seasons and would like to go bigger and get the separate shower, but I also want to retire in a couple of years. So we'll probably stay with the 310 for now.

I also like having a little boat to run around in so I bought the 150 Triumph several years ago... great little boat. Last year I upgraded it to the 175 Scout which is an even greater little boat!

I went from a 300 Sundancer to a 410 Sundancer with diesels.
We made a list of the things we both wanted in our next boat (seperate shower was at the top of the list) and decided we wanted a 380 Sundancer.
After looking at a bunch of them I decided that I wanted diesels which started me looking at 410’s because there are way more to choose from than there are diesel 380’s.
The extra room in the 410 is always nice, but we really like the pocket door and separate guest head so we’re really glad we went bigger than the 380.

JimG said:

I started off with a couple bow riders... we would sleep in a custom van in the parking lot of the marina. Got tired of that and bought the 270 which we trailered for a while. Eventually got a slip for it. Kept the 270 for 7 or 8 years and wanted to go bigger, so the current 310 was it (can't lie, ego was part of it!). We've had it now for 10 seasons and would like to go bigger and get the separate shower, but I also want to retire in a couple of years. So we'll probably stay with the 310 for now.

I also like having a little boat to run around in so I bought the 150 Triumph several years ago... great little boat. Last year I upgraded it to the 175 Scout which is an even greater little boat!

Click to expand...

What year 270 and 310?

JVM225 said:

I went from a 300 Sundancer to a 410 Sundancer with diesels.
We made a list of the things we both wanted in our next boat and decided we wanted a 380 Sundancer.
After looking at a bunch of them I decided that I wanted diesels which started me looking at 410’s because there are way more to choose from than there are diesel 380’s.

Click to expand...

Later on down the road I had goals of a 380, or 370 express with diesels, just dont know if id want to lose the aft cabin. Those 380s sure are rare with diesels. 410 and the 450 sure look nice too

PlumCrazy4spd said:

What year 270 and 310?

Click to expand...

All info is in my profile and signature... 99' 270SE and 07' 310DA.

We went from a 19.5 bowrider to a 1997 250 Sundancer. Primarily for the head & the cabin. That gave us the ability to stay on the boat for an entire weekend and be independent of the weather. That was on a sizable lake in Iowa.

Moving to NE Florida we got a 2002 360 Sundancer. Wanted twins, bigger cabin, A/C, generator. We have it parked at our house. The boat has gassers and we've had to replace one engine. We also replaced the helm electronics and now have hybrid-touch Raymarine MFDs with engine data. Love that.

In my opinion we bought the wrong boat, though my wife does not agree -- she loves the 360. We are at least 90 minutes from the ocean via Intracoastal in two directions, but there are many small places close by with sandy beaches that we cannot squeeze into with our 37" draft. We've had two damaging groundings that cost a couple boat dollars each.

I want a twin outboard boat like the Grady-White 360, but with my advancing age perhaps the best avenue is to sell ours and enjoy other people's boats.