posted 06-13-2002 01:54 PM ET (US)            

I know deadrise is important: I called Boston Whaler and asked them what the transom deadrise of my 2001-generation 23 Outrage was. They said it was 20 degrees. I know the entry deadrise of my boat is quite steep. I think you can safely say that any of the newer BW deep V hulls rides at least as well as any other boat with a transom deadrise of 20 degrees or less. As the deadrise goes up though, i.e. regulator and Contender, I’ve heard there are many handling characteristic trade offs to consider as well. Folks say that deep deadrise boats roll a lot more, are less fuel efficient and don’t recover as quickly when you are getting tossed around in rough water. I hope someone with a lot of experience in this area can address this because I’ve never ridden in a boat with a 22 + degree deadrise.

Dryness of ride is also important: the reverse chines on Whalers make them very dry compared to some others. It also makes Whalers very stable when trolling etc.

Hull strength is also important. Because Whalers are virtually indestructible, you don’t have to worry about beating up the hull. As a result, you don’t have to baby a Whaler. I have friends with Seaswirls and Wellcrafts, it sounds like they are going to break apart when you hit a few waves too fast. In short, if you like to go fast in rough water, you can do it with a Whaler.

posted 06-13-2002 03:42 PM ET (US)         

I also remember salmon trolling on Lake Michigan in a friends 26', 7500# Stratos Center console, in about 6' seas. The thing rolled so badly we could harly fish at all, and I could hardly wait to get back in. I couldn't believe the HUGE difference in offshore stability. The boat was a real pig.
I see why they finally quit making them.

posted 06-13-2002 04:50 PM ET (US)         

It's a compromise - the cathedral hull will ride rougher but won't bow steer, won't be tender and is easier to handle and trailer and much less expensive to operate than a heavier boat with a deep V hull that's the same length (not that I'm saying a 19' boat is comparable to a Montauk, but that's my point of reference).

posted 06-13-2002 06:10 PM ET (US)            

--reading it somewhere;
--hearing it somewhere.

They have actually never ridden in a Whaler because they costs too much for them to own one and they don't have any friends that own one (who will take them abord, anyways).

A smaller group of the people who think Whalers are bad riding boats got this idea from:

--being pounded by a ride in an original 13-foot Whaler that was operating in rough conditions.

If the only critereon for judging a boat's ride is to drive it into large headseas at high speeds, then other hull forms will outperform a Whaler in that condition. However, a hullform that runs beautifully into large headseas at high speeds may also prove to have other characteristics at other speeds, like:

--need excessive horsepower to plane
--steer and track poorly at low speeds
--roll badly in drifting or beam seas situations.

So you have to consider the total operation of your boat. If you envision yourself always dashing offshore into 4-6 footers at 40 MPH, maybe a Whaler is not the boat for you.

Now, how about this situation: your teenage daughter takes your boat out, a big storm blows up, the engine dies, the boat gets swamped by a huge wave, it's raining like a biblical flood. Do you want your daughter on:

--a deep-vee boat that will roll miserably, eventually taking on enough water to sink until the gunwales settle to the water (or below), submerging the outboard, the battery, etc., or might even sink completely; or,

--a Whaler that will comfortably ride out the storm, whose floatation will keep the boat stable and the outboard powerhead above water.

posted 06-14-2002 01:23 AM ET (US)            

Anyway, about that nasty Boston Whaler reputation, it is well earned. Remember, the original Boston Whaler was the 13' followed closely by the 16'. Boston Whaler made these hulls from 1958 (the 13' that is) to 1978 before they introduced a deep-V hull.

So for 20 years Boston Whaler produced tens of thousands of extremely popular but different types of boats. These boats could handle seas other boats of that era simply could not on a pound for pound basis.

These 13' and 16' hulls did ride hard compared to the deep-V hulls that became popular in he 1960's and 1970's. They could also handle more horsepower per weight of hull than most and thus were driven very hard. I know, I have lots of hours in both these hulls.

The 21' hull and then the 19' that followed were built with a similar cathedral shaped bottom and thus did not improve very much on the 13 and 16's ride quality. But all these hulls have stupendous reserve buoyancy, stability and strength. Everything is a trade of. In all things in life, you take the good with the bad.

Boston Whaler’s reputation was not built on being like every other boat out there. Dick Fisher had his own agenda. He never tried to build a soft riding hull.

Now the 1980's saw the introduction of Bob Dougherty’s best hull designs and they perform much like other deep-V hulls on the market. But Whaler’s reputation was established. With the continuation of the Montauk and 13’ designs all the way to the end of the millennia, the reputation of hard riding was perpetuated. But the newer V-hulled Whalers certainly do not qualify for this distinction. Riding in a Dauntless 14 is amazingly smooth compared to a Montauk!

posted 06-14-2002 04:33 AM ET (US)         

We all need a bit of rest and relaxation sometimes...It's perfectly acceptable to take a vacation.

posted 06-14-2002 11:11 AM ET (US)            

Some of us (well, at least a couple of us) of the curmudgeonly persuasion enjoyed the humor of the temporary edit.

Just thought you'd like to know...

posted 06-19-2002 10:09 AM ET (US)            

So far as the notion of Whalers giving a hard ride in general, in the macro sense it seems like an urban legend in that no one really knows where the notion got started, but it's one of those things that can (or maybe has) take(n) on a life of its own, simply because someone wrote it or said it somewhere and someone else read it somewhere, and pretty soon it starts to sound to the casual observer like there is a fact being discussed...

On the micro level, there are some whalers that under some circumstances give a harsh ride. Name a boat company that doesn't have to say the same thing about their product, though...it's really meaningless. As Tom C. or somebody said, "hard" is way subjective - it's like saying Gradys (pick a boat) are too heavy. What does *that* mean?