New Sundancer Announcement - Anyone have a sneak peak

I like my engines like this.

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A Regal salesman said they doubled their sales with the outboard powered boats. The Regal VP of marketing said they were "at capacity" with regard to making the Regal 26 XO (outboard powered express cruiser). Like it or not, four stroke outboards are what's selling. If I can get Sea Ray to make a 260 Sundancer with a Mercury 300 hp outboard on the back I might be able to convince the wife to take out a loan. :D

And they still make the classic express cruiser which many brands no longer do. Not sure I'm fan of the outboards vs a traditional swim platform, but they sure do create a lot of storage space!
 
The outboards to me are all about ease of maintenance and RELIABILITY. Sorry, but my Yamaha 200 was 14 years old, salt water the entire time, and never needed new water pump, new risers, new manifolds, fuel pump, you name it. Started first time every time, even after 5 months of sitting in my backyard. It’s now 17 years old, and still going strong, with little maintenance and few repairs. Compare that to my 12 year old mercruiser 350s, water pumps replaced, all pulleys, belts, fuel pump relays, leaking fuel pump (not fuel, but the raw salt water to cool the fuel pump), water pressure sensors, IACs, risers, manifolds, elbows, etc.
if you are in fresh water, you can probably go either way, gas inboard or outboards, but salt, outboards, all the way. Diesels, another story, assumption here is a boat not big enough for diesels.

These boats, to me, look great. I love the seating area on the bow of the 320. I love the full windshield, especially in FL with the sudden thunderstorms, love the mid cabin bed. I love being able to tilt the engines out of the water at the end of the day, hookup the hoses, and flush away. No need to trust the dock hands. With the engines being white, you can probably sit on the engine like a chair, I used to do that all the time on my Yamaha, just had to spray the engine down to cool off the dark paint. No more through hulls to get clogged, or leak, or flood your boat when a hose cracks, (minus the generator!), no more rudders, no more leaking rudders, shafts that you have to swap out the dripless shaft seal, or cutlass bearings, much shallower drafts when you need it, stainless steel props that don’t bend like the bronze ones. Ton of more space in the hull to boot. Still need to service that generator, but you know what? No need to climb over to large engines to get to it (if you have stern drives, you don’t have this issue, but you do have some extra maintenance on those stern drives and all that entails)

Overall, I would do it in heartbeat! I don’t know what my 320 new was, but it was close to the prices above, granted, it is 35’ and 11.5 beam, but, I’m still going to the boat show this weekend!!
 
I have seen multiple Regals, 33 XO variety, and the owners love them. They look great, perform well, and are reliable. It will be interesting to see how they age after 5-10 years, but they look great now. The 2020 version has a full hardtop, but the standard open window where you need isinglass.
 

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