1988 Sea Ray 300 Sedan Bridge

[northern]

I live in western Canada and have found the above boatin eastern US.
Looking for a summer boat for cannals in the east and figure this might work.
Does any one have one of these and if so what sort of items should I look at before making an offer on it.
Main item to start is head room. I am 6' 4" will I hit my head on the ceiling and will I fit in the bed.
Other items I am interested in are rot problems in decking IE balsa core getting wet and engine stringers and transem getting wet.

 

[AKBASSKING]

I have a 1986 300DB and there are several of us on CSR that are enjoying these classics..............

 

[Pack66Dad]

Didn't they change the design in '88?

 

[AKBASSKING]

Didn't they change the design in '88?

not sure but didn't the 305 come out about then..........

 

[C Mills]

I am 6'and my wife and I have an 85 300 SD and Love it.Plenty of room for our family of 6 to fish on Lake Michigan.
Take a hard plastic mallet and gently tap on the side of the stringer.You will be able to tell by the sound.Also put a wrench on the lag bolt of the eng.mount to check the tightness.

 

[Russ Calasant]

I think it was called a 305 in 1988 and in 1989 it was a 300. The 88 and 89 were of different design, I thought ahead of it's time actually. I had an 89 300 Sedan and liked it, she was a gas pig and underpowered. Manners were not great around the dock but manageable. There was a ton of room for a 30 and dual staterooms. I don't think you will find a boat in this class/price with more room, not sure if you will fit but I'm 6'1" and never gave it a thought.

 

[marklar]

how do these handle rough water like lake michigan?

I've got an 86 340 SB and we're headed up the IL river to wi this weekend. NO idea how the hull is going to handle "real" water vs. the IL river which is always calm.

 

[AKBASSKING]

I was heading to Astoria OR this past weekend on the Columbia River. About 15 iles above Astoria, the river opens way up to a few miles across. We had high water with a hard 25mph west wind, driving waves to about 4 feet sometimes a 5 footer would come along and we did just fine.

 

[Pack66Dad]

We got in some pretty rough water last year. Rough enough we lost a fender and got wet on the fly bridge :wow:.

The boat handled it very well, so well that the Admiral was even laughing about getting wet. :thumbsup:

 

[marklar]

wow that's really good to hear! I always worry about ours because the bow is so low to the water it seems like it would take on waves over the bow pretty frequently in anything more than 4-5ft. Not much of a freeboard on these things at all.

Being 100% inexperienced in waters like michigan in the chicago area with our specific boat I'm basically petrified of what it can truly handle. Being that it's about a 6-10hr ride up to wi from where we're going to exit the IL river (based on conditions and speed I go by), I have to be confident it can handle it even if the weather worsens a bit and there's not a lot of places for refuge once I'm past the city.

Any tips regarding this are welcome!