posted 02-18-2009 10:53 PM ET (US)        

The new console design on the 280 OUTRAGE is beautifully integrated with the metal structure that supports the top. The large aluminum supports are nicely decorated channels that are precisely bent and formed to fit to the console shape. All the fasteners are hidden. I'd like to see the details of how Whaler has built this. Some sharp engineering went into it.

The console is enclosed on three sides by glass. Again, no fasteners are visible. The glass pieces appear to be held in place by an adhesive.

In the forward cockpit there was something going on with the bow cushions and seats. I couldn't quite figure it out, and no salesmen came over to help, but I think there is science and design with the way the filler panel in the bow fits in place. It looked like there were supports in place so it could be moved back to fit against the console, too.

I stepped down from the starboard side hatch into the little cabin under the console. When you are down there you realize just how deep this hull is. It is a long step down into the cabin. From the cabin you can access the main electrical panels by opening a bi-fold cover. On the starboard side is an elaborate circuit breaker panel which also has the primary battery distribution switches. On port there is an expansion panel with pre-wired fuse blocks to which you can add ten more accessories like navigation instruments, displays, sounders, and so on.

When you do add some accessories, you'll want to certain about your choices because you will probably be flush mounting the displays and instruments into the blank laminate of the upper helm dashboard. You or your installer will have to have a steady hand when making these cuts. You don't want to mar that beautiful laminate work.

The helm is set up on the port side of the console. The boat is rigged with twin Verado motors and the usual DTS top-mounted controls. A VesselView instrument panel provides the engine data read out. The twin 250-HP Verado motors looked great. The integral hydraulic steering system and all-electrical shift and throttle controls make the engine rigging beautifully simple and clean. The seats are great. They're deeply padded helm seats with flip up cushions that turn them into leaning posts. You can adjust for fore and aft position of the seats over about a six-inch range. I liked the seats back as far as I could get them to give me more room.

The steering wheel is nicely positioned. The axis of rotation is near vertical, which I like. Yes, I know it's the middle of winter, I am indoors at the boat show, but standing there at the helm with that wheel in my hands gave me a great feel of boating fun possibilities. Driving this big Outrage will be a blast.

I also enjoyed looking at the new 130 SPORT and 150 SPORT designs. They're great boats, and filled with quality. The navigation lamps are very nice LED fixtures. And I loved the pair of huge cleats incorporated on the inboard side of the transom. I thought I saw a flaw in the gel coat on the 150 SPORT. Could it be? No. It was just some adhesive material stuck round the fitting for the sun top support. I rubbed it off with my finger, and the little flaw disappeared.

posted 02-19-2009 01:34 AM ET (US)            

Thanks for the thorough report. You drew a great picture in this reader's mind.

Did you happen to notice how many salesmen were present and if they were with other customers? I find it interesting in the fact that for such a detailed description you must have really pored over that vessel and not a single salesman showed any interest in you. Given the interest you must have shown in the boat to gather such detail to form the impressions you relay here. How long were you on the boat that no one took notice?

Thanks again for the assessment.

posted 02-19-2009 02:56 AM ET (US)            

Thanks for the detail. I don't get a chance anymore in Utah to see any new Whalers anymore as the local dealer is gone.

My work takes me to the coast and I have been in every Whaler dealer between Seattle and San Diego over the years.

Especially as of late, I see critical comments regarding the newer Whalers with regards to build quality. While nothing is perfect, I generally disagree with the comments and just move on.

I have been the owner of two 80s era classic 18s and have really enjoyed them. One I have modified with a T-top, overpowered it with a 200hp and drilled it all over. The second came prestine and I kept it that way. I now own a "modern" 20 outrage and really enjoy it.

I think there are many points to a quality boat. One is "style", another is the "extras" that are appointed on it.

On a classic 18 outrage, I like the teak doors (3), the front cast bow cleat, the cast end pieces on the rear corners of the rub rail and a few other assorted metal bits.

Put them in a pile and what does the "extras" I mentioned cost Whaler in the build process. Teak doors and metal parts? Probably $600-1000 back then.

The " style " of the smirk bow is classic and it all comes together well.

However, I wonder if Boston Whaler tooled up and reporduced the 18 again, exactly the same, priced it the same in todays dollars, would it sell well enough? It was an expensive boat in the 80s, priced in the the low 30k area I believe and would probably be in the 50k to 60K today. I just don't know if it would sell. It would be classic, but also old fashioned in a way and off the charts expensive for an 18ft anything.

My point is, take those "extras" trim pieces away, examine the gelcoat, non skid, the actual fiberglass layup in the boat and I don't think it is any better than todays boats.

I have drilled all over on a classic. If anything, the modern day outrages seem to have a better glass layup, more weight, yes, but at least as durable and tough as the classics.

They are minus some of the classic "trim" pieces that are nice, but still great boats that are still "unsinkable"

Think about this angle on things. Look at Grady-White. Great quality, great company, they also sink. They have also had the easier road of consistant ownership. That means alot. Same with Everglades and Bobs nice work. I doubt however a generation of young boaters are affording Everglades and growing up in them like some of us. They are very expensive. Will Everglades survive the eventual "change" of its legendary owner and founder when it is passed onto his son?

I am not sure Grady White would have the marketplace and as loyal a customer base has it has enjoyed if it was "compelled" to put on a certain outboard vs another. Grady has a choice of outboards, Boston Whaler hasn't for a long time.

Think about it. Would you bet your investment/retirement portfolio on the second generation of Everglades carrying it foward?

Sometimes the ultimate durability of a brand and its function are best demonstrated by rough times like Whaler has gone through with difficult buyouts, different owners, change of culture from its founding state up north to Florida.

Could Grady White survived all that Whaler has gone though? Great boat, nice "trim" pieces, still sinks. Alot of boats have fit into that catagory over the years and are gone today. Without the relative calm water of consistant ownership like Grady has had, who knows?

Boston Whaler has survived much more difficult years and is still here. It is the brand I would buy again new, even after owning classics. It is beyond unsinkable, it is a survivor.

posted 02-19-2009 09:34 AM ET (US)            

In the under-console cabin there is also a built in shower. The shower head is contained in a molded inset on the cabin bulkhead, and at first glance you don't recognize it as a shower head. It pops out of its recessed housing with an attached hose. The shower head is a long cylinder, not much larger than the hose. It looks very space age.

There is another shower at the transom. There are also capped water faucet outlets fore and aft where a hose can be attached to use for a fresh water wash down of the cockpit. And there is also a sprayer on a telescoping hose at the bait preparation station. These are all fed from a 3.3-GPM pump and a 28-gallon tank. The fresh water plumbing system must be quite complex. WInterizing this boat for layup in northern climates will require some attention be paid to this fairly complex system. Boaters often remark about the high cost of these new boats, but they don't realize how much gear is integrated into the them.

Behind the console helm seats there is a beautiful built in locker and live well. There is a sink on the port side and a large, deep live well on starboard. If it were my boat, I'd probably throw some crushed ice in the live well and use it to keep the beer cold, or keep it dry and use it for storage. But there appears to be some circulating and fill pumps--not being an avid angler I didn't investigate too much.

There are pull-out drawers beneath the sink on port. They are beautifully crafted from a material like KING StarBoard. They have slides with smooth rolling action. It is a fine piece of marine furniture.

posted 02-19-2009 11:55 PM ET (US)            

If you took the boat to a really good canvas maker, I am sure he'd be able to come up with a forward shelter. The shape of the frame cross members would have to be a compromise to allow them to fit into the pointy bow. Boats with more blunt and rounded bows can permit the frame of a forward shelter to have flatter cross members. Another problem for a forward shelter canvas is the frame could not easily slide forward for storage. On classic Whalers the cockpit sides do not narrow as you approach the bow, but on these newer Outrages the gunwales narrow as you go forward. This would prevent using a sliding track for the forward shelter frame, as has been done so successfully on classic Outrages. I guess we'll have to leave it to an inventive and skilled canvas designer to come up with a forward shelter for a 280 OUTRAGE.

After you get the forward shelter made, you'd want more weather canvas to tie the forward shelter into the console area and its nice fixed top. The top perimeter is made of tubular aluminum. Fastening the canvas to it might take some inventive techniques. The goal is to end up with a boat that is rain tight. If you are stuck on the boat at a marina for a rainy weekend, you will appreciated staying dry on the boat.

With the bow and console area buttoned up, it would also be nice to be able to use the aft cockpit, too, so we'll need some canvas and a folding frame for that. All this canvas won't be cheap. I'd allocate about $15,000 to have it custom designed and fabricated.

I was just listening to a WEST Marine motion picture report from the Miami Boat Show, and the on-camera announcer said that there were "hundreds of Florida center console boats here, from 17- to 36-feet." He also commented about how all these center console boats are alike. This, sadly, is part of what many feel about these newer Boston Whaler designs--they are very much like other Florida center console boats.

The way people use their center console boats in Florida apparently does not include any plans to stay overnight on them. I think most buyers of a Boston Whaler 280 OUTRAGE are probably going to use it to go fishing. Maybe they'll start early in the morning, they'll run a long way to the fishing grounds, they'll troll in the ocean for several hours, but they'll get home or back to port by evening. They'll sleep in their own bed at night, not on the boat. That's a good plan for Florida, but it doesn't fit with my typical use of my boat.

posted 02-20-2009 10:00 AM ET (US)            

Towing a 280 OUTRAGE is going to take a great deal of preparation and investment. The first problem is the width. With a beam of almost nine and a half feet, the boat will be wider than most states allow on their roads without a special permit. If you are just moving the boat a few miles to a launching ramp, it may not be a problem, but if you plan on interstate travel, acquiring permits will add to the transportation cost. Assuming we can handle the paperwork, let's get this boat on a trailer.

The 280 OUTRAGE weighs 6,100-lbs dry and without engines. The pair of Verado motors, their propellers, their lubricating fluids, and other rigging will probably add over 1,600-lbs. If the 200-gallon fuel tank is full, add another 1,250-lbs. If the freshwater tank is full, it adds 230-lbs more. With a boat this big, the three batteries will weigh 250-lbs. And we must have some gear, perhaps 200-lbs at least. This means the boat is going to weigh around 9,430-lbs. A trailer to handle that load will probably weigh 2,500-lbs itself. This means the total towed weight of this rig will be around 12,000-lbs. We are going to need a big truck.

To haul a 280 OUTRAGE around on a trailer you will need a 3/4-Ton rated truck. Fortunately, these days you can find trucks with tow ratings to match this load. The only problem is most of us don't want a 3/4-Ton truck as our daily driver, so your 280 OUTRAGE tow vehicle is going to be a special-use vehicle. Figure a $40,000 truck will do the job, unless we want a lot of leather seating and multiple DVD players.

When finally off the boat and with my feet back on the ground (or the concrete of the exhibit hall), I looked at the price of the 280 OUTRAGE. It was a big number, over $100,000 but under $200,000. I don't feel like it's over-priced. You are getting a lot of boat with a lot of added-on equipment and features. However, there were no electronics included, so we should allocate at least another $10,000 for that task. That should get is a top-grade radio, SONAR, GPS receiver, chart plotter, and a couple of big color displays.

posted 02-22-2009 10:48 AM ET (US)            

http://www.whaler.com/site_media/Performance_Data/280OR_EnginePerf_.pdf

posted 02-23-2009 10:02 AM ET (US)            

Here are some pictures I took.

This was a very interesting step up 220 Outrage.

Twin 115 Verados .....

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694449_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694449-2-Web_0_ef632a078846c23a1791868804fdfc60_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694448_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694448-2-Web_0_bfd9a75dd48d2e8ac0e8e54686526344_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694447_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694447-2-Web_0_77b8038836a5061032cfc0cbae80f799_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694450_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694450-2-Web_0_8a5f8585252dce77542e984c7a4a4835_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_59191587_Web_3/ Image-4892322-59191587-2-Web_0_c39aaa2b5957894739da5cad9fdfbbb9_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694453_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694453-2-Web_0_5e0b207562cfcad3e77f7abb79cd55a8_1

250 Outrage

280 on the left 250 on the right (both of these boats are sold. To date they've sold 2 250's and one 280.

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694455_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694455-2-Web_0_34ce07c288488e960064ee859a1e7ee8_1

Aft access to the batteries, tranducer area, and bilge area. This area covered by a hatch that provides good and provides easy access to the area.

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61696685_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61696685-2-Web_0_da1b86ad8ab1fc545a0d6327fe7a077b_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61696687_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61696687-2-Web_0_a34dc94ead5cddad2e200d35b46f4e94_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61696683_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61696683-2-Web_0_9b1d8ad797a8e159bb314b8235155a01_1

280 Outrage

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694490_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694490-2-Web_0_0eac6bb5813b4af013f2b7dfdd3843f0_1

Integrated windscreen

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61741251_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61741251-2-Web_0_b7a1a34ac956c4ffdb75da67956dafae_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694474_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694474-2-Web_0_51a68566742f5e922d2cfb8138aea19a_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694478_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694478-2-Web_0_88102d2e712d4084ba7a5d0acf93de4c_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61696681_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61696681-2-Web_0_ced29d7d0d644ee27f4e19c031761a11_1

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61694479_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61694479-2-Web_0_5c772943f1672c3a90a10c72b65dd943_1

There you go .....

posted 02-23-2009 12:28 PM ET (US)            

The other thing is that the T-top legs are virtually flush with the console sides adding more room to walk forward and aft. This also adds to the aerodynmaics of the console and cuts down on weight.

280 Outrage bow ... you can really see the flare

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61751849_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61751849-2-Web_0_e0eb2f165378cee5a606b0cac84b84ef_1

250 Outrage bow .....

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_3310080_61751851_Web_3/ Image-4892322-61751851-2-Web_0_d7e76e2246a3ff9a6e830e24a9d32b2e_1

2007 model 240 Outrage bow .... notice the more blund vertical sides to the hull

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_2160360_31031758_Web_3/ Image-4892322-31031758-2-Web_0_d2e163d9bff4b9ee59c36ab698f27a5d_1

220 Outrage T-top design ..... you can really see the design difference bewteen the new & old T-top designs

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/ 4892322_3310080_61753458_WebSmall_3/ Image-4892322-61753458-2-WebSmall_0_f05b25a5f459a03f1a4dd3592f2dba63_1

2007 model 210 Outrage t-top design

http://cdn-2-service.phanfare.com/images/4892322_2160360_31031436_Web_3/ Image-4892322-31031436-2-Web_0_2f725597f8ef8df3c7fcc90ba8e51940_1

posted 03-04-2009 06:15 PM ET (US)         

Is anybody reading this is willing to admit that the U.S. Standard of Living peaked in 1971, the year of the famous ribbed side Outrage, and that we are now facing a HUGE DE-LEVERAGING and DE-VALUATION of our lifestyles and buying abilities? You should be. In light of where were are right now, and where we are headed, these beautiful, well made boats seem utterly ridiculous to me, stuffed with relatively un-important and worthless, high cost accessories, a luxury and extravagance few can afford or in reality need (even thought they want you to believe you do). Sorry, but that's the way I feel. The state of the Marine Marketplace indicates I am correct. And the recent casualty in the Gulf indicates these boats are not even as safe as they are cracked up to be.

Where is a "Down East New England" conservative, design oriented, highly rational and efficient mentality similar to Dick Fisher's now that we need him? He would be be appalled to see these excesses in Whaler Outrages and Conquests (although he might love the 150, 170 and 190 Montauks). Even the sizing system using these SeaRay 3 digit numbers is a joke. A legal way of IMPLYING length that doesn't exist. Get rid of that marketing garbage and get back to reality.

Compare these "whales" to the mean and lean, highly efficient and under-equipped (by todays standards) Outrages of the 70's and 80's, still the boats keeping Boston Whaler's name famous and well known. The new "220" has really no more interior usable space than an Outrage 20 or classic 21, the 250 is really nothing more than an Outrage 22 with a Whaler Drive, and I doubt if the 280 has any more useable interior space than my 25 Outrage with full transom.

The question is in this new economic world we are all facing, do we need this huge size and weight, this excess of extravagant accessories and rigging, this outragegeous cost that nobody can afford or finance. I doubt it, as none of this means you will enjoy the boating, fishing and cruising any more that with a lean and mean classic, or a Montauk 19. Who has the capacity to buy, finance, fuel and trail these beasts? Not many, except for a few rich people, who may not be that rich anymore after they get taxed to pay for the excesses of the rest of us over the last 20 years.

And don't tell me that BW *HAD* to offer these boats because the competition does? They're not selling their over loaded boats either, and many brands are disappearing altogether. Who in the world needs two freshwater shower stations in an Outrage?

posted 03-04-2009 08:25 PM ET (US)            

)
I decided to make a move 2-3 years ago to that conservative, highly rational and efficient mentality and moved to an Albin 28 with a single Yanmar 315. Unsinkable? No, but the life raft is....and the inflatable that often accompanies us.
But we cruise in comfort (and style)and we are at a reasonable pace of 18-20kts....at 7 gal/hour. You can't go all that much faster on Nantucket Sound with steep chop anyway.
At the boat show, the 35 Everglades with triple 350 Yahmaha's (incredible and fast)burnt 40 gal/hour at cruise and 105 gal/hour at WIDE OPEN!!! Holy cow!!
Who in their right mind would buy it?
I just don't get it.