If the one dude with the 258 is near you, maybe reach out to him and see if he would be willing to take you out for a ride on his boat? I've also got a 228 Seafarer and have no complaints with the boat. That being said, I'm trolling for salmon and checking crab pots in the Puget Sound, which is mostly all protected waters without a ton of swells, at least during the summertime when I'm out boating. I do like that the 258 Journey is a longer/wider boat as well as has the option for twin motors on there if you wanted them. That being said, a few of the features aren't exactly my favorite... the first being that it's only an 8'6" beam. The stern has the bang cap/plate as opposed to a transom bracket like the 228 Seafarer/232 Gulfstream will have on it. The stern also has a door which I'm not sure I would personally ever use all that often, and one of the biggest things would be that it just has a small cutting board in the transom. Comparatively, the 232 Gulfstream in a 2006+ model still has the enclosed transom with the transom bracket, no bang cap/plate, it's a 9'3" beam and it has a pretty large fish box in the stern of the boat. The dry weight of the 232 Gulfstream is also essentially 300 lbs heavier than the 258 Journey at 4,605 vs 4,320 lbs, so even though the 232 Gulfstream is a shorter boat overall, it's also a heavier boat. The centerline length of the two boats also isn't that much different in that the 232 Gulfstream has a centerline length of 23'5" vs 24'9" for the 258 Journey, so just over a foot longer. With the 228 Seafarer being only 22'2". If I was in the same boat, pun intended, I'd maybe look at the 232 Gulfstream as well, or instead of the 258 Journey. It seems like the two tradeoffs that I've heard with the 232 Gulfstream are that it has kind of a funky style of cabin with the bunkbed style of sleeping area, and that it has a considerably wider beam, making it more difficult for some to trailer/launch or whatever on their own.
