1989 280 Sundancer Cruising Speed

[ourcastaway]

We're looking to buy a 1989 280 Sundancer with twin 4.3, 185 HP I/O's. Can anyone tell me what the cruising speed would be on this, meaning speed at 32-3400 RPM. The broker is saying 25-30 MPH, but I'm skeptical. Thanks.

 

[JeffMendenhall]

My personal experience is that the 4.3 is under powered for this size boat. I just bought at 300 Dancer with 260 HP V8s. Not sure, but I would guess you will probably top out at 30 MPH with the 4.3 running full blast. Hopefully someone out there has a comparison for you. Good luck. By the way, I believe running 3400 rpm is probably running full out which is not necessarily a good thing.

 

[Sundancer]

I'd guess the 4.3's can run into the upper 4,600 to 4,800 rpms. I don't know what that translates to for speed, but a similarly equipped 290 that we test drove hit 42 mph. That had slightly higher hp per engine. I'd guess the dealer is in the ballpark.

 

[Larry]

The broker is not even close, I had a 1991 280 Sundancer (same boat) with the 4.3 LX motors which put out 205 hp and we put 4 bladed props on it and had a spotles bottom and we would cruise @ 3400 RPM and get just 19-20 kts and WOT was 4600 @ 32 kts. With these motors I would call this boat underpowerd, You couldn't cruise at a lower RPM as you were just on the edge of holding a full plane, and forget about a following sea, it is very tough to stay on plane without adding another 100 RPM's. I had this boat for 5 years and it was a great boat but it was just my wife and myself, if you loaded the boat up with 4- 6 people it was a little more of a challenge to maintain plane without pushing the RPM's up a little. Remember the 1989 280 you are looking at has 2 alpha drives turning clockwise as opposed to the 1991 280's that had counter rotating drives, this helps allot durring docking and low speed manuvering, so if you are set on a 280 I would look for a 1991 if posable, just my .02....

Sundancer; Remember this is a 10' 6" beam and a true 30 ft. boat (31' 11" LOA), as apposed to the 290 of early 90's vintage that was a 9 somthing beam and a smaller boat LOA

 

[Sundancer]

True and I missed the 185 hp.

 

[270win]

We had a Chaparral 28 Signature that I just sold this summer. It was over 30' LOA and 9'6"beam so it's comparable. It had the 4.3LX alphas...although mine was counter rotating. It took 3200rpm and tabs to keep it on plane with two people and less than 1/2 fuel. Add more people and fuel and it was a PIG. At WOT (4600 RPM) it ran just over 35mph with a spotless bottom and light weight. This translated to us puttering along off plane at 1500-2000RPM so it didn't make us go broke with fuel costs...

Because it needed so much throttle to go anywhere it sucked down fuel like crazy at cruise. If I had kept it I would have put 5.7s and B III's in it...then it would have been a great setup.

 

[ourcastaway]

Thanks all. Looked at another 1989 280----beautiful shape, but the owner told me it cruised comfortably at 14 knots and about 30 WOT. Too much of a pig for me. I think I'll limit my looking to twin V-8's. Thanks for all the input.

 

[bone354]

I had a 1990 with twin 350 alpha 1s It cruised nice at 3300rpm at around 32mph with a clean bottom . Great boat good luck.