Sea Ray 240 Sundancer
 

Hi all, newb to the forum. We have a house in Laconia. I currently have an older 17.5' Stingray bow rider, but have been thinking of upgrading to a Sea Ray 240 Sundancer. Was curious about what your thoughts are on if this is big enough to handle the weekend chop.

That boat will do fine on Winni weekends!

If I may ask, what are the specs on your 17.5? The wife and I are looking for an 18' bowrider. Feel free to message me.

Thanks for the replies, JasonG I just sent you a PM

Have a boat that is close
 

I have a SeaRay 240 Sundeck (2008) and love it. Handles most reasonable chop well

Sea Ray 240
 

I don't think the new 2015 SeaRay lineup has a 240 Sundancer so I guess you're looking at used. I have a Sea Ray 240 Overnighter. As an island resident facing the broads, this boat seems capable of handling all sorts of weather and wake chop. Depending on your most frequent type of use, the Sundancer, Overnighter, or Sundeck are all good choices. This is my third Sea Ray.

Descant is correct.
They did away with the 240 and now only make the 260 Sundancer as the smallest version.
Although looking at the new 260s, they seem like the old 240s size wise in the interior.

Sometimes it seems...
 

...that manufacturers say they aren't making the smaller model and more and now make only the next model up. Say deleting a 24 footer and replacing it with a 26 footer. But when you read the small print, the hull is 24 feet, with an over all length of 26 feet due to an added swim platform:eek:. Gee, that's a lot of added space for the extra $10k in cost, and the extra 2 ft of cost of docking and storage.

Is this the case for the 260's?

You know, I didn't even think about the docking, storing or Registration increase!
But that's what it seems to be these days.

I was going to add a swim platform to my 25 ft Mariah until I realized it was going to add $250 per year to docking costs ($125 per ft). We have a swim step built into the hull, works just fine, and we can dangle our feet in the water, maybe just not quite as deep.

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240 vs 260 Sundeck
 

We have the original 240 Sundeck. Overall length is 26'-4" but the swim platform is bolted on. The newer 260 Sundeck is still 26'-4" overall, but the swim platform is molded into the hull allowing them to call it a 260. Absolutely no change in the actual boat or its usability.

The sundeck 240 is an excellent boat for winni. We spent a couple seasons out there with their 19' Stingray and it handled about 80% of the lake pretty well even on a crowded weekend day. Sometimes, though, the broads were a bit much and reduced our progress to a trimmed-up, bow-high crawl. Haven't really felt much of it with their 240 sundeck and it rides very well. The downside, though, is if everyone starts getting bigger boats to mitigate the chop we'll be in the same place in 5 years asking about 28-to-30 foot boats instead.