Information or opinions about mid 90's 30 foot Weekenders

[Mike HHH]

With the assistance of very helpful people from this board I resolved the freeze plug issue and our 87 270 sundancer is sold and long gone. We are trying to figure out whether to go with a no-frills fishing oriented boat like a parker or maycraft or get another Sea Ray. The one thing I know for certain is that I do not want to deal with outdrive(s). I had been thinking about 94 or 95 express cruisers or 95 to late 90's sundancers - they will barely fit in our community slip - but - we hardly ever overnight on the boat and getting a bigger one than we had will probably not change the pet, grandchildren, schedule reasons that caused us to use our old one as a day boat - so
I keep thinking about a mid 90's 30 weekender. I know they were available with v-drives. Due to the lack of mid berth sleeping capacity they aren't as popular (or expensive) but the big cockpit seems ideal for our day-boat normal use.
Does anyone have any experience or opinions with this boat?? If I find one I'm serious about I will have it surveyed by a surveyor familiar with Sea Rays - but - when I'm looking at it/them is there anything in particular to look for (such as any unusual water intrusion issues). Do they have prop pockets - are they docking impared and did they have the water ingestion issues that many 30 dancers (and others) from that time period dealt with? Finally, does anyone have a guesstimate as to the cruising speed/fuel burn with 260 v-drives.
Thanks in advance for any advice or assistance.
Mike H.....

 

[fwebster]

The 300WE is one of the best day boats from any manufacturer and they represent one heck of a bargain if you buy one with inboards and if you can find one that is clean and has a good service history. In fact, I like this boat so well, that I'd consider looking for one with run out engines that needed repowering so I could put a pair of 4 cyl 215 hp Yanmar diesels in one.

Prop pockets in Sea Rays get a bad rep. While they do ad some complexity to handling, they also give you a shallow draft which is a trade off I can accept/ Learning to handle one of these boats is not at all hard. You may need a burst of power to get the boat to react, but the prop pocket/slow speed handling is certainly no reason to avoid an otherwise great boat.

As you have discovered, this is a better day boat than cruiser because of the trade off in cockpit space instead of interior cabin area. The cabin is entirely livable, however, if you can accomodate the smaller area.

The 300WE never had exhaust water ingestion issues since these boats have the old style exhaust and vavle timing. If water ever got in the engines in one, it came from bad risers or manifolds and not as a by product of the design.

If I were to list the top 10 Sea Rays ever, this boat may well be in the list.............

 

[Mike HHH]

Thank you Frank -
the 30 Weekender does seem like a great day boat but with enough of a cabin to keep the grandkids out of the sun. We're supposed to look at a local one tomorrow - I figure the fuel burn will be about the same as our 270 DA. The DA obviously had outdrives but it seemed awfully sensitive to trim and wave conditions, i.e. even a foot chop or not trimmed just right really brought the mileage down.
Thanks again I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and advice.
Mike H...

 

[fwebster]

You will find handling the 300WE to be a breath of fresh air after trim sensitive outdrive boat with a narrow beam.....they are very forgiving. You pretty much push the throttles forward and the boat takes care of itself.

 

[Kameroo]

You probably already saw it by now, so I hope it's not too late to add my 2 cents...

Early last year, we purchased a '91 280 WE. This boat was renamed the 300 WE from '92-'95. It had the option of sterndrives or inboards. Older and more recent Amberjacks have a similar layout, with the newer ones sporting a mid-cabin.

We use it as a day boat, and sometimes 2 of us stay out for the night. When we bought it, we found that they ran almost $10,000 less than similarly-sized Sundancers because of the lack of the mid cabin.

To sum up our experience, we love the boat! We paid $30,000 for the boat, which was in pretty good condition and had spent it's whole life locally in fresh water. It has a great ride, and has a large cockpit area that is great for entertaining. We have the rear-seat sunpad option, but never use it. We love having the sink in the cockpit. There is plenty of room for a few deck chairs if you have a big crowd. We've had the boat full for fireworks displays several times now, and I can say you'll be challenged to find another 30-footer with that much room in the back.

The cabin has plenty of room for changing clothes or making lunch. When underway, we usually have between 3 and 5 kids down there. They love it, and it keeps them out of the sun. If you convert the dinette, the bunk is about 8' long.

As for I/O's vs. inboards, that's a whole other debate. We like the efficiency of the sterndrives. I figure that the extra maintenance on our sterndrives is a wash when compared to the extra fuel you'll use on the inboards. There are times I wish I had the inboards when docking, but the sterndrives are nice sometimes, too. For example, if you get a rope tangled in the prop, it's much easier to fix with the drive trailered. If you have to come home on one, it's a non-event with the sterndrive.

We've been looking to move up to a bigger boat, but keep asking ourselves: how much more will we have to spend to get the same sized cockpit area that we already have? If you don't need the cabin space of a Sundancer, this is a great boat. We keep looking at the 330-350 Sundancers from that era and ask ourselves how much per night that extra dinette and mid cabin will run. You will have a hard time finding more Sea Ray for the money.

Lastly, check out swimplatforms.com for a great swim platform. You can do a search here to see some pics of ours after we added one. There is a newer 290 Amberjack on the market here, and the swim platform is almost identical.

Good luck!

 

[Mike HHH]

Kameroo:

Thank you for your response. We actually put off seeing the boat today, it keeps looking like we're about to get some much needed rain (and I wanted to have plenty of time to look it over) and a small tree pruning project ended up being 5 pick-up truck loads of branches going to the recycling center.
I think you had the same questions and needs that we have - and I'm glad to see that you came to the same conclusion. The 30 weekender seems like a fantastic day boat - with enough cabin amenities to handle overnighters. Literally paying double for a dinette +/or aft cabin doesn't seem to make sense given we never used the aft cabin in the old boat. I understand the I/O vs I/B debate and I think we've made a different decision on that issue. The maintenance on I/O's here in the brackish water of the Chesapeake is just too much of a pain - combined with the fact that a simple water pump impeler replacement means a haul. I like the idea of having the option of winterizing the boat and leaving it in the slip. I do hear your concerns about removing a line around a prop - we do have an enormous amount of crab pots in the river and bay - but I'll deal with that when I tangle one.
Thanks again for the response - after I climb all over the boat I'm sure I'll have new questions.
Mike H.....