Official 290 Sundancer Thread

Michael Pietrangelo said:
I would like to get the information to get this Bimini extension for my 2006 290 SD. Where should I look??? Thank you in advance!
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We ordered ours from Great Lakes Boat Top and have been very pleased with it. (Just a tip, SD = sundeck, DA = Sundancer. Looks like you have a DA, nice boat btw!) One suggestion to accompany the canvas. Spend the $150 or whatever it costs to by the pres-n-snap tool. I bought the tool that Great Lakes sells and then after a hell of a time spent the right money on the Pres-n-snap. It was night and day.
 
Thanks for the SD/DA tip :)

Can you give me an idea on cost and timeframe??

PS . I can tell why you like the way my boat looks Hahahah!
 
We ordered all new everything (camper canvas, sun shade, eisengalss, etc.) and it was just shy of $4000. We had the poles already but I believe they sell those too. Occasionally they have 15-20% off sales so I would ask them if they know when the next one is. The canvas fits like a glove!

Seems like you are a new owner? Congrats! We are new owners as well and I have done a lot of the things that you are looking into. This forum is awesome and there are some extremely knowledge and friendly people here. However, the search function sucks on the site...so I will share the best tip I found here when I started. Go to your search bar in Chrome and type site:clubsearay.com canvas replacement. (Using the underlined section for whatever you are looking to find). This lets big brother Google do the searching for you and will uncover all sorts of threads that you cant find using the CSR search bar.
 
Just a fyi. Go to searaycanvas.com. i got my back camper top with poles and everything i needed for bout $1600. Guy was super helpfull and matched my oem color perfect
 
Another choice is RNR marine. They have just about everything you will need too. Only bad thing is that you cant call anybody. Everything is done over the internet. Makes it alittle tough
 
Hello everyone, I have been looking for a 290 DA for quite some time and we finally found one. 2007 in pretty good shape, 5.0's w/bravo III's & generator. We are having the survey done this weekend and hope your experience might help me focus on anything that could be overlooked by the surveyor. Thank you and looking forward to enjoying a fantastic layout of a boat.
 
My suggestion would be to let the surveyor do his/her job and base your buying decision based on that. If you look hard enough you’re going to find plenty of problems on a 13yr old boat. I bought a 2006 and LOVE it! Seems like there’s always something to fix but I knew that going in. Enjoy!!!
 
Michael Pietrangelo said:
My suggestion would be to let the surveyor do his/her job and base your buying decision based on that. If you look hard enough you’re going to find plenty of problems on a 13yr old boat. I bought a 2006 and LOVE it! Seems like there’s always something to fix but I knew that going in. Enjoy!!!
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Thank you for the input, that was my intention. As you mentioned you can always find something. I fully understand the age of the boat and am in it for the long haul, this is a fantastic design.
 
Hello 290 owners!
I'm in the process of purchasing a 1993 Sundancer. This boat is mint, nicely equipped and with a new 7.4 and a recently overhauled Bravo 2 drive. Several others I looked at, even several years newer, were shabby, high hours, poorly maintained or entirely neglected. I took this one for a sea trial yesterday and the boat runs well. I think it's a gem.

One thing I noticed is that it seems a little tender (not entirely stable side to side) when on plane. Is this a characteristic or am I not using the tabs properly? Another question : does this boat have a d.c. panel? The a.c. panel is just inside the cabin door but no sign of a d.c. panel. I have a survey coming up and I would like to ask you folks if there are any items or areas of particular concern on this year and model? Any kinks or cautions for this boat?

Many thanks! I look forward to your responses.
 
Juliery,
The 1993 290's are a 9ft beam boat and do have a tendency to flop from side to side (while on plane) due to the deep cut V hull and the narrow beam. Slowing down a little combined with burying the bow with the tabs and the lower unit helps some. Also, balancing out the boat weight-wise helps too. Shift things around in the boat so she doesn't list at the dock.

This is the main reason I looked for a 1997 and newer 290 with the redesigned hull. Sea Ray corrected that issue with the 10.5 beam.
 
Getaway said:
Juliery,
The 1993 290's are a 9ft beam boat and do have a tendency to flop from side to side (while on plane) due to the deep cut V hull and the narrow beam. Slowing down a little combined with burying the bow with the tabs and the lower unit helps some. Also, balancing out the boat weight-wise helps too. Shift things around in the boat so she doesn't list at the dock.

This is the main reason I looked for a 1997 and newer 290 with the redesigned hull. Sea Ray corrected that issue with the 10.5 beam.
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Thanks! I 'm going to try the auto levelers for the trim tabs.
 
Juliery said:
Thanks! I 'm going to try the auto levelers for the trim tabs.
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There used to be a guy from Bennett "Tabman" (RIP) who helped many of us. The bottom line is SR seemed to use undersized tabs as a spec. I tried the AutoTabs and they were slow to respond and found I could do a better although seemingly constant job of leveling. Spend your money on larger tabs and you will be much happier.
 
Thanks. Do you think the Auto Pro system with Bolt actuators might respond better? Perhaps with larger tabs, too.
 
Juliery said:
Thanks. Do you think the Auto Pro system with Bolt actuators might respond better? Perhaps with larger tabs, too.
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Yes, you will be spending plenty of cash though. As I remember the Auto Tabs were 500 installed. I think....I checked into the tabs and that was 500 + or - .
 
Anyone have underwater lights on their 290? I'm looking at two or three of Lumitec SeaBlaze X2 Dual Color White/Blue. But I'm concerned with power consumption and that they actually may be too bright. Would love to have the evenness of 3, but at 5 amps each that's 15 Amps total. Would like to keep it around 7.5 amps which is what the factory halogen lights draw. I believe the dual color should be 50% so 2.5A with blue ony so I would be fine with 3. But if they're really 5 Amps with blue only I need to go with two of the X2 or three quattros which are a bit older product. Any suggestions, let me know.
 
pyro said:
Anyone have underwater lights on their 290? I'm looking at two or three of Lumitec SeaBlaze X2 Dual Color White/Blue. But I'm concerned with power consumption and that they actually may be too bright. Would love to have the evenness of 3, but at 5 amps each that's 15 Amps total. Would like to keep it around 7.5 amps which is what the factory halogen lights draw. I believe the dual color should be 50% so 2.5A with blue ony so I would be fine with 3. But if they're really 5 Amps with blue only I need to go with two of the X2 or three quattros which are a bit older product. Any suggestions, let me know.
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Pyro, did you ever decide on lights? What did you pick? Any pictures or a fully documented install I can copy? =) This has been on my "wish list" for a little while. Curious to see what you came up with!
 
After going back and forth many times, I finally ended up ordering three Seablaze X2 blue/white. I am thinking the quattros would have been ok but it was hard to tell if they would have been bright enough. Anything brighter than the factory downlights under the swim platform would have been probably good enough - just in blue. But I went with the no regrets approach knowing I would be able to dim them (for power savings) since I was adding POCO.

To install in the transom, I'm planning to oversize the 1/2" hole as well as the 3 screw holes, and then re-fill with Marine-Tex (thickened Epoxy). Then re-drill the proper size. This way if water was to ever leak past the sealant, it's absolutely not getting into the transom wood and causing any rot.

If I was using Quattros I was going to leave the underwater lights connected, and use the Compartment load to the underwater lights to power them directly. Then move the compartment light to the bilge lights. I've never actually used the compartment light so in the rare case I want it, I'll just have to turn bilge on. With the X2s they have a 3 wire setup, power, gnd and ctrl, I think I'm going to do the same by connecting the 3rd control wire to the compartment load, since I like having the helm switches (not exclusively through MFD). I'm going to add a new breaker and run a new wire to the X2 power. Not sure how easy that will be. Note, you'll overload the 15 Amp EIM breaker with three X2s.

I also ordered 5 Mirage RGB to replace the 3 cockpit and 2 arch lights. I'm planning to connect everything with Lumitech's POCO connected to MFD. There's a number of ways to wire this, but I'm planning of connecting the POCO in series with each load. This way the lights still turn on/off with the help switches, but can also be dimmed, color changed, etc with POCO. But POCO won't be able to control anything unless the helm switches were first on.

I should be getting them next week, and will measure the current and play with the POCO system before installation. I'll keep you updated with lots of pictures. Obviously no in water pics until next spring.
 
Sounds like a great project! Please keep us posted! Good luck!
 
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