Grady 340 Express Announced

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fishtalk

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Surprised to not see a thread on this one yet, but Grady is releasing a new 340 Express (presumably to replace the 330) at the Ft Lauderdale Boat Show in October. Interesting layout included in GW's email yesterday. In addition to switching from center to a starboard helm (like Pursuit), also look to have done away with the standalone dining table - curious if that's now incorporated into the forward berth or the aft berth "w/ lounge backrest" will be the new sitting area.

One disappointing update is the aft fish box has shrunk by nearly 50%. Assuming no in-deck storage, offshore fishermen will have to bring a 160-210qt Yeti or fish bag if planning to catch tuna on this "100% elite fishing machine and ultra-luxury cabin cruiser".

Would have liked to see Seakeeper Ride as a factory option as well to keep up with other upper tier brands.

Diagram of the Grady-White Express 340 showing various dimensions
 
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fishtalk said:
Surprised to not see a thread on this one yet, but Grady is releasing a new 340 Express (presumably to replace the 330) at the Ft Lauderdale Boat Show in October. Interesting layout included in GW's email yesterday. In addition to switching from center to a port helm (like Pursuit), also look to have done away with the standalone dining table - curious if that's now incorporated into the forward berth or the aft berth "w/ lounge backrest" will be the new sitting area.

One disappointing update is the aft fish box has shrunk by nearly 50%. Assuming no in-deck storage, offshore fishermen will have to bring a 160-210qt Yeti or fish bag if planning to catch tuna on this "100% elite fishing machine and ultra-luxury cabin cruiser".

Would have liked to see Seakeeper Ride as a factory option as well to keep up with other upper tier brands.

View attachment 37790
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Yuck.
 
I know they have gyro stabilizers but they also have a trim tab like stabilizer. Wasn’t sure what that referred to. OP had several mistakes in post.
 
Glad they shitcanned the center helm. I can't stand it on mine....one of the only things I don't like about the boat.
 
Hookup1 said:
I know they have gyro stabilizers but they also have a trim tab like stabilizer. Wasn’t sure what that referred to. OP had several mistakes in post.
Click to expand...
My comment on the Seakeeper Ride was in reference to the actual product, Seakeeper Ride, which is the trim tab system and not the Seakeeper 3 gyro which Grady offers as a factory option. Agree the naming of these products could use a little more differentiation.

Regulator, Contender, Sportsman, and a growing list of other brands offer it as a factory option and, given extremely positive reviews online (no personal experience), I feel like it’s a miss from Grady to not do the same (can still be fitted by Seakeeper aftermarket).
 
fishtalk said:
Regulator, Contender, Sportsman, and a growing list of other brands offer it as a factory option and, given extremely positive reviews online (no personal experience), I feel like it’s a miss from Grady to not do the same (can still be fitted by Seakeeper aftermarket).
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That may depend if GW changed the hull or just added one ft somewhere to make it a 34ft.
If they changed the hull and closed the trim tab pockets then SK Ride or the other similar trim control systems must e installed,
or the normal transom mounted and behind transom extending mounted trim-tabs.
AFAIK, the problem of all of them is that on a hull with trim tab pockets they must be filled and glassed over to have a flat surface for the interceptor style tabs.

Yes, Seakeeper used their hyped name and added the RIDE to distinguish them from their initially presented Gyros and they are a complete different thing, in space, cost and what they do. SK RIDE does only work well when boat is on plane, they don't work at low speed nor at drift/hook, but for that is the gyro model what works as supposed at any speed.
SK RIDE does not work when fishing nor does it when overnighting but seems to be a nice feature when doing long runs on choppy sea.
So basically it provides a nice, comfortable ride 100 miles out to the canyon with 5 footers, but once out there you get thrown around by the 5 footers while with a gyro not.
On thing what makes a gyro difficult on smaller boats is that any gyro of any brand need a massive amount of energy to run and long time to spin up.
While spin-up time is a matter of organization before using it producing the energy for keeping the gyro running may be one and only reasonable to solve with wither engines always on and/or the generator running, both is doable but noisy.

I copy a link from a THT tread regarding interceptor style trim control testing SK Ride, Zipwake and Humphrees and SK Ride seems to be the winner.
Panbo seems to be a rather serious website for electronics and i would expect that they conducted the test seriously, but money roules the world and i learned to believe only my own eyes.
https://panbo.com/smoothing-the-seas...tems-compared/

Chris
 
Regarding the new layout of the 34 Express.
GW as many others try to combine family luxury and hard core fishing what never works.
Some brands like GW do it better some much worse and i agree that it is a difficult task to make both groups happy.

The new smaller fish box is certainly disappointing, but not for all fisherman and i guess not many can fill the new size one,
but for anglers who target big fish or many smaller ones it will be uncomfortable as (al least here) fish cant be altered on the boat in any way, not even to fit the cooler/fish box. However, bringing a fish bag or big cooler would be a acceptable solution for me.

I personally would prefer to have a 2 person bench (or the 330 layout) on stbd side over the single captain position what would make me feel lonely. However the L shaped bench with table is not bad either, the CC 35 i tested had it and owner modified the table to make a short bed out of it.
What i - based on the design- dislike is the after seat instead of a useful tackle center to put a transportable induction cooking plate on top of it when cooking what i find much more useful than a backwards facing seat.

In a few months you can see the new beast personally and that max change some opinion based on a design.

Chris
 
Seakeeper has announced kits for filling in trim tab pockets on some boats. I believe a few Grady model are available or will be soon.. The kits include molded filler parts to enclose the trim pocket. That's kind of cool and make the refit a lot simpler. I found this link
ride.seakeeper.com

Pocket Fit Kits - Seakeeper Ride

Seakeeper Ride installation options for boats with recessed trim tab pockets. No fiberglass work needed. Less time. Lower cost, Ride on.
ride.seakeeper.com ride.seakeeper.com
 
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