Quote:
Originally Posted by Lakepilot
We had a 20' Four Winns that didn't like Winni. Sold it and got a 25' Cobalt bow rider. It's a big and heavy boat that handles Winni great. I've been out in some pretty rough stuff and never got a drop over the bow. As with any boat, if it's not handled well you can get into trouble.
I think if you want to venture to almost any area on Winni on all but a few days, I'd get at least a 25' boat.
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My first boat was an 18.5 footer and I never thought twice about taking it anywhere on the lake. Had it in 3-4 foot chop many, many times. In fact on the days the chop is up usually enough to make cruising a spine jarring experience typically means its not a good sun/fun day anyways and just about everyone is off the lake on those days.
There's a gazillion boats on the lake under 25 ft. I have a 22 footer and don't want anything bigger. Seems after 24 ft the premium for slipping, storage, winterizing, etc goes up exponentionally. It also gets to the point where your tow vehicle often needs to be upsized as well.
I like the Cobalt's as they have neat styling and from having trampled over many of them at past boat shows they appear to be well built. They have a good warranty too. However the cost premium over a comparable SeaRay, Four Winns, and Chapperal is quite steep. Much cheaper to buy another brand and pay for the mega warranty.
Although this is about as non-scientific as I could get, I refer to the Cobalts as BMWs and the Four Winns and SeaRay as Accord and Camry.
My Four Winns H220 (21'6") weighs as much as a brand new Cobalt 210 (22'6") by the way and they both have an 8'6" beam.
From having sat in a Cobalt, I did not feel the freeboard to be much different from what other boats have. I'm too lazy to start doing head-to-head comparisons.