Sea Ray 52 SB or similar

For the East Coast, SR has not been in the Euro Pilothouse market as well. A huge mistake in my opinion. Letting Fairline, Sunseeker, Princess, Ferretti, not to mention Azimut and others sell highly styled Flybridge Motoryachts with a functioning Pilothouse (some more than others) was a huge oversight on the Brunswick managed brand.

Especially when you consider that a SR owner of a 60 Sundance or 58 Sedan has no where to go except switch to another brand. This approach has been a huge favor to Marinemax, who can step the loyal SR customer towards a Euro brand and a slap in the face for the SR brand, as they too could have rode the wave of sales in the previous 15 years and stretched the brand to 70 - 80 - 90 - even 100'.

But this long term approach is difficult to pull off when you main obligation is to main the current stockholders your priority..........

Sea Ray absolutely dominates the market for under 55' on the east coast, and these buyers just don't want a lower helm station. They prefer using that space for living, and enclose the upper helm for climate control, The east coast is such that it's very conducive to lunch runs and short hops with very little ocean time. So upper helms are ideal. Also, the cost of shipping boats to the west coast would put them in a position they'd find it hard to compete in. Their dealer network (Marine Max) is set up to cover their customer's needs by handling Azimuth, so Brunswick has no need for Sea Ray to tool up to compete in that market. Should they decide to I'm sure we'll find them buying Azimuth rather than growing the SRs. Till then I think they see that market (55' to 100') a very risky business to be in, and highly competitive. With the sale of Sunseeker I think we'll be seeing a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the near future, and a lot of casualties. To expand into that market could be a very large mistake.

MarineMax was a merger of the big and profitable SR dealers. they gor there by riding the giant that CN built. That led the way for where MM is today. Many who understand the business can't help but think that MM played a major role in limiting the SR Product to Sundancer's and Sedan Bridge's in Yacht segment after the Brunswick guys took over, while MM grew there own market share by diversifying to other brands - who could really blame them for thinking long term? This has proven to be a fateful decision for the controllers of the SR brand over time, as the English and Italian invasion of sleek Pilothouse Motoryachts is complete and they are a non factor. The domination you speak of kept them blind to how the market had shifted.
With all that boat building capacity and market coverage, it should have never played out that way.

The acquisition of Azimut by Brunswick has already been looked at a long time ago, but you will not see American ownership of Italian boatyards, it just won't work.

Sea Ray owns a large segment of the yacht market, basically the 26' to 50' segment in the eastern U.S. Brunswick has a huge segment of the yacht market from 19' to almost 60'. Brunswick may buy an existing brand, but I don't see the upside of SR going through the start-up expense to expand into a different and expensive segment of the industry and one that's pretty saturated. Better to do what you do well than to do everything mediocre. I don't think they missed anything they weren't happy to miss.

rc, I think you have your facts mixed up. Meridian (formerly Bayliner) has always been a low-medium priced boat, priced well below a comparable length SR. The difference comes in part from the construction methods and materials.

In June I had the opportunity to take a Bayliner 5788 (~60') from Lake Union in Seattle down to Stockton, CA. It seemed to be bouncing around A LOT compared to my boat, which is a SR 550 Sedan Bridge. Both boats are around the same length so I didn't figure that was a factor. The Bayliner had a beam of over 17' (the owner wasn't sure--he'd only owned it for a month) compared to mine with a beam of 15'5", so the Bayliner should have ridden better in the seas we were in.

When I asked him the dry weight of his boat he said it was ~48,000-49,000 pounds. If that was correct that puts his boat around 10,000 pounds lighter than mine, and I suspect THAT was part of the reason it bounced around so much. Much of that 10,000 pounds is undoubtedly in the build of the hull.

SR and Bayliner/Meridian use different hull moulds and I suspect the difference in the SR hulls makes them a better riding boat in a heavy chop.

Not even close. And here a a couple links to verify.

Top 100 Lap Records | Nürburgring Lap Times
Cadillac CTS-V Breaks Nurburgring Record! - Road & Track
2014 Cadillac CTS Vsport Sets 8:14.10 Nürburgring Lap: Video
List of Nürburgring Nordschleife lap times - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1200 hp and only running 9's? What was your torque figure?

I had read that it held a record as fasted stock, or showroom stock (no tire changes) but maybe I was misinformed.

The vette didn't hook. 1.9 60 foot. It was a handling car that went to the strip a few times. Only strip mod was drag radials. I ran them on the street because they didnt spin so much, and lasted longer than autocross gumballs. Cheaper too. I believe torque was in the 850-900 range. This was an earlier ls build, I would do it different now. All my dyno sheets went with the car when it sold, otherwise I would look it up.

Hold on a second....is this the snowman??? Mag Red Monster here if it is

Nope, not me. I never really did the forums thing with my fast stuff. People don't need to know what I'm running. Anyways, Jerry Reed is the snowman.

I knew a guy that lived in Texas when I had my 99 Vette. He had a white 2000 Vette ( hence the "Snowman") built to the gills, ran in the low 10's , upper 9's. Thought you might have been him

You would be surprised how many there are running around Dallas/Fort Worth. There are more than 20 guys on ricekiller that are over 1000hp in various cars and trucks. I think there is/was a 1000hp vette club in Houston as well with quite a few numbers. Sorry though, all my vette's have been black.

My wife really liked SR 450 Sedan Bridge and I put it in my list.

I've read the entire thread and took some notes. It's a lot of information to digest. I'd like to see what other boats are similar to SR 450 and give a similar bang for the buck.

How do any of these (to name a few) compare to Sea Ray 450 SB (CMD/Zeus)?

Azimut 45/48 FB (CMD/Zeus?)
Maritimo M45/M48 (IPS)
Riviera 43 FB (IPS)
Marquis 42 SB (IPS)
Beneteau GT Fly 49 (IPS)

.......

Agree with Capt.J about the Azimut. Would throw that right off the list. Don't like the 'Woody woodpecker' Marquis 43 either (personal taste). Not familiar enough with the Maritimo or the Beneteu to render an opinion. I do like Rivieras though. However, given your location, I'd stick with Sea Ray. Getting parts or service is a snap anywhere on the east coast, and they're easy to resell.

Thank you guys. I just thought I'd ask. I got the impression that SR is a good quality.
My wife has a very good taste and although she knows nothing about the boats, she always senses good stuff. The upcoming Miami and Palm Beach shows will be much fun for us.

Right now, thanks to this forum, I'm leaning towards a few family-oriented boats with CMD/Zeus pods, though good choices are very limited right now, a few Cabo 40/Vikings 42/Jarret Bay 46 SF and Sea Ray. If you come across anything else interesting, please let me know.