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.

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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).
 
Ride is standard on sportsman (at least the 26')
 
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
 
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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
 
Nicely appointed as a cruiser boat with fishing being a secondary thought. Lack of rod holders and places to install them in that configuration as I see it. Any guesses on the retail price of the model shown on Grady's site ? 800 ish maybe ? I wonder if the transom still has the GW bang cap or did, they glass it over ?
 
I agree it seems like an unhappy compromise. For sand-bar or marina cocktails with family & friends I'd rather have the Freedom or even the Canyon. But for offshore tuna fishing (my passion), I'd find the 340 pretty frustrating. On a good trip to the canyons we easily fill the full transom fish box plus a similar size bench cooler -- for a long overnight trip you need the extras space for ice. I added 17 extra rod holders (3 transom, 2 more to the gunnels, 4 to the hard top uprights, and 6 rocket launchers, 2 bow rail). Also downsizing the live well is a negative as well.

I also don't really see the point in the super fancy cabin -- it's great to look at, but it's still a small cabin on a 33ft boat. Can't really imagine trying to spend more than 1 night in it.
 
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Pat Hurley said:
Nicely appointed as a cruiser boat with fishing being a secondary thought. Lack of rod holders and places to install them in that configuration as I see it. Any guesses on the retail price of the model shown on Grady's site ? 800 ish maybe ? I wonder if the transom still has the GW bang cap or did, they glass it over ?
Click to expand...

If I'm reading this correctly... per the Grady White website it says that the boat has 12 rod holders on it. 4 horizontal hanging rod holders, 4 side mounted rod holders and 4 cockpit rod holders. Obviously fishing isn't the main consideration on a boat like this, nor do I even think it's a secondary consideration... maybe 3rd or 4th at best. Pretty looking boat but goodness, not for I'm guessing close to a million dollars.
 
I think the starboard helm is a big win. The helm area was too tight (5 lbs in a 3 lb bag) in my opinion. Wonder if the hull really changed or just a rebranded 33. They did the same with other boats in the past to justify the price tag.
 
zoomed in on the only pic that shows a glimpse of the transom. looks like the bang plate is still there.
 
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Mustang65fbk said:
If I'm reading this correctly... per the Grady White website it says that the boat has 12 rod holders on it. 4 horizontal hanging rod holders, 4 side mounted rod holders and 4 cockpit rod holders. Obviously fishing isn't the main consideration on a boat like this, nor do I even think it's a secondary consideration... maybe 3rd or 4th at best. Pretty looking boat but goodness, not for I'm guessing close to a million dollars.
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... yep , 4 gunnel mounted and maybe 2 of those side mounted would be useable in a trolling spread, other than that you need a rocket launcher taking up room in the cockpit to troll additional rods. that doesn't leave any room for a cooler to make up for the deficit of space in that smaller fish box. I thought they had the cruiser / family / multitask boat in the Freedom models to cover that audience. When I envision an express boat I see a boat that targets the more ardent fishing crowd. What do I know ? The Price tag will be "Ludacris"
 
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