Sportfish for family

Over the weekend, I met an owner of a 2000-era Hatteras that keeps his boat in Eleuthera. He previously had a Riviera and said the ride wasn't good, so he sold it. I've never sea-trialed a Riviera, so I can't comment. Might have been a specific year issue, wasn't trimmed right, etc. Maybe one of YF's more experienced captains can chime in.

How big is your family, most 50-60 foot production sportfish should have 3 cabins, with the lower 60's boats having 4 cabins. Also you could setup a sportfish to be a cruiser quite easily with the addition of a cockpit table and sunshade, and bow lounges etc. The production builders, (Viking, Hatteras, Bertram, Ocean, Post, Riviera,) offer models in your size range, and depending on your budget, you should be able to find a suitable boat from any one of these builders. With some of the builders geared more towards pure sport fishing, and others a mix of both.

You might want to look at something like an Off Shore? unless speed is a consideration. To me its both fishy and posh. SF have the sleeping quarters bunched together. With children (or guests for that matter) its nice to have a little separation. We have a 50 Post, 3 staterooms with alot of beam and a big cockpit. Still, 5 people living aboard would be trying. Long weekends were ok. Just our experience having had 2 children cruising with us. Our kids spent a lot of time in the inflatable exploring and visiting friends they made.

While my 50 Viking sport cruiser is not what you are looking for, we do a couple Bahamas trips a year spending maybe 4 weeks per summer on the boat. We also like to fish some but wanted a large flybridge with seating, a swim platform, portholes, side decks, built in steps to the bridge and a few other aspects not often available on a sport fish

So I installed high end rod holders in the gunnels and a nice set of removable outriggers. Only takes a few minutes to retrieve from lazerette. Can easily troll a 5 line spread. Works well and convenient. Also not having huge permanent outrigggors means I can go under several bridges in S Florida icw on the way out

Given your family size, what about buying a nice Hatteras (or other) motoryacht and towing a 26’ center console for fishing? In the Bahamas you don’t have to run so far to go fishing, and you don’t have to bring the entire house and family fishing if they don’t want to.

J is correct medium size tender is way to go. Besides fishing you'll want to explore all the little coves and bays. With no tender everyone goes fishing cause the hotel left the dock. Kids will be old enough soon to drive it also

If you get a motor yacht, you get much more usable space per foot vs a sportfish therefore could downsize a little. Plus lots less wear and tear and fuel using tender.

It's settled, sell your 34 center console. Buy a depreciated 26 center console and a boat like a Sunseeker Manhattan 60 ( just an example of a very nice living and cruising platform for $700 to $800K) to cruise and lounge and live. Unless the fishing you want to do is in transit only.
This way when you are back home you still have the 26 center console to use similarly to your current 34. Plus your kids will be old enough soon to have more fun running the 26' fish slayer.

I was recently in a very similar situation although I probably lean more towards fishing. I was looking for a fairly long time and recently settled on a 53 Viking Convertible that came around at the right price. It's a bit of a compromise (with wife)but I think it will work out for us. She wanted 2 Queen SRs and a large bridge. My suggestion is to look at quite a few boats and narrow your needs. The right boat will come along eventually

Elk, you’re going to need someone to maintain the big boat in florida. Pay a captain to run the big boat across for the few times you go to the bahamas. A good captain that knows the ins and outs of all of the nooks and crannies in the bahamas is worth its weight in gold anyhow.

The literal interpretation of that often hits me as we say it but do we really pay attention to being worth our weight in gold. My calculation shows that would put you worth about $7.4 million. You're good, but not quite that good. lol

First, to set background on my answer. I'm not a SF fan for ownership and I don't like the idea of towing a CC. So, with that disclosure my answer to this.

If you fish and intend to do a reasonable amount then a SF makes sense. To equalize the space to that of a MY you may have to go a size larger, but a MY will never be as good for fishing as a SF. It's your purpose and use that matters. Now, I'd much rather carry a tender so I'd get a boat large enough to carry the tender I wanted to take with me. No, it's not as large as a CC but still it will allow you to explore and most of the Bahamas is very accessible to the SF. If you want to do more, you can always rent a CC for a day or week here and there.

I will make that over my career, so perhaps i am!!!!!!!

Move the CC to the Bahamas once and leave it there? Or get a slightly smaller CC and ditto? Retrieve and use when necessary?

-Chris