I posted a report after my first season with my Sailfish and had overall very positive things to say about it. I figured I might as well update eveyone on my impressions after season two, now that she is out of the water and up on the hard for the long Northeast winter.
I continue to be impressed by the boat and think that the twin 200 optis are a great power choice for this hull. I used the boat as a hotel room several nights this summer for me and my family and we had a ball "camping out" on the boat. I rigged up airconditioning using a cheap $100 room airconditioner and about $20 in duct work and dryer vent tubing and we all slept comfortably. This really added to the versitlity of the boat.
As far as fishing, this was a terrible year for me. We had a great inshore bluefin tuna run, which I essentially missed, because of bad weather or bad crew...we ended up getting only one tuna and no mahi. Overall a terrible offshore season for me. Inshore, we did pretty well with the usual summer flounder, bluefish, blackfish and stripers. I can't blame the boat for any of this, just bad luck for me.
Some of you may know that I do have the boat for sale on this and a couple of other forums. This is not because I am not happy with the boat. It is really a financial decision. The one complaint I have about the Sailfish is that despite it's combination of versitility and performance and relative low operating costs (1.7 mpg, low maintenance requirements of outboards, build quality of Grady White) it has the unfortunate quality of being just too big to trailer easily or regularly. This puts you at the mercy of the marina and hear in the Northeast that adds thousands of dollars to your yearly costs. A move down to a 22 Seafarer for example would save thousands on marina, fuel, and maintenance costs. You would give up using the boat as hotel room and some offshore fishing, although the 22 could be used in that role on nice days on a limited basis. If I moved up to a Marlin or 330 my marina and maintenance costs would not go up much and I would have a lot more boat. So overall the Sailfish is just the right and just the wrong size at the same time.
I am not trying very hard to sell the boat. If someone comes along and gives me my price I will let her go, but in the meantime, I am continuing to upgrade in many places. Smartcraft guages are going in this offseason along with more thruhulls being changed. Add the routine maintenance and I will be quite busy over the offseason.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all!
I continue to be impressed by the boat and think that the twin 200 optis are a great power choice for this hull. I used the boat as a hotel room several nights this summer for me and my family and we had a ball "camping out" on the boat. I rigged up airconditioning using a cheap $100 room airconditioner and about $20 in duct work and dryer vent tubing and we all slept comfortably. This really added to the versitlity of the boat.
As far as fishing, this was a terrible year for me. We had a great inshore bluefin tuna run, which I essentially missed, because of bad weather or bad crew...we ended up getting only one tuna and no mahi. Overall a terrible offshore season for me. Inshore, we did pretty well with the usual summer flounder, bluefish, blackfish and stripers. I can't blame the boat for any of this, just bad luck for me.
Some of you may know that I do have the boat for sale on this and a couple of other forums. This is not because I am not happy with the boat. It is really a financial decision. The one complaint I have about the Sailfish is that despite it's combination of versitility and performance and relative low operating costs (1.7 mpg, low maintenance requirements of outboards, build quality of Grady White) it has the unfortunate quality of being just too big to trailer easily or regularly. This puts you at the mercy of the marina and hear in the Northeast that adds thousands of dollars to your yearly costs. A move down to a 22 Seafarer for example would save thousands on marina, fuel, and maintenance costs. You would give up using the boat as hotel room and some offshore fishing, although the 22 could be used in that role on nice days on a limited basis. If I moved up to a Marlin or 330 my marina and maintenance costs would not go up much and I would have a lot more boat. So overall the Sailfish is just the right and just the wrong size at the same time.
I am not trying very hard to sell the boat. If someone comes along and gives me my price I will let her go, but in the meantime, I am continuing to upgrade in many places. Smartcraft guages are going in this offseason along with more thruhulls being changed. Add the routine maintenance and I will be quite busy over the offseason.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all!