Forget the price tag; it’s about the escape. From cuddies to cruisers, here are 4 boats under £50k that offer pure joy on the water
I know I’ve done the new car prices analogy to death, but seriously, £50,000 no longer even buys you a top of the range Honda Civic! Yet that’s where I’ve set the price cap this month for a collection of entry-level boats that just might tempt you onto the water. But I stress, this isn’t a price challenge – that’s merely the top end. The cheapest offering that I’ve brought you is less than the cheapest new car for sale in the UK full stop! (Dacia Sandero is the cheapest new car with an actual engine, according to Google AI, at £14,285).
All of them will allow you to sleep on board (with varying degrees of comfort) and head to sea (subject to a careful inspection and a common sense approach to risk and weather). But lets not get too hung up on the money, because what you also have in front of you is freedom, joy, family time and above all, escape.
Yes, you might have breakdowns, aggravation and expense, but hey, welcome to boating! Remember, your glass is neither half full nor half empty, it’s simply twice as large as it needs to be. Enjoy!
Sea Ray 200 Overnighter
Built: 1991
Price: £8,950
I started my marine career in 1989 at a Sea Ray dealership, and so got to play with a lot of Sea Ray boats. One that stood out as a great blend of trailerable practicality with good seakeeping was the Sea Ray 200 CC. In 1990 that boat was updated to the 200 OV (Overnighter) you see here.
Interior
This is a cuddy cabin boat, so consider a night on board to be akin to a night in a two-man tent, albeit slightly more comfortable and a lot more fun. There is a large vee-shaped double bed beneath the foredeck with a deck hatch above it and a space beneath it for a chemical loo that you will never use. There’s no standing headroom but there’s plenty of space for two to lie down. Berth the boat in a marina so you can use their facilities and showers and it’s perfectly enjoyable.
The cuddy cabin has limited headroom but is fine for overnight ‘camping’
Exterior
The result of that tiny cabin is plenty of space where you most want it in a boat like this, in the cockpit. The layout is typical for the era, a pair of back-to-back seats either side that fold flat to create sun loungers, and a pair of jump seats either side of the engine box that slot in level with its upholstered top to create another slim sunpad. Updates over the 200 CC include a curved windscreen rather than the previous flat-pane one, plus a full-width bathing platform. Despite its age, it’s still a great looking boat!
Performance
Sea Ray offered a Mercruiser 205hp 4.3 litre V6 or the lusty 5.7 litre V8 fitted to this boat, which produced 260hp when it was new for a top speed somewhere up toward 40 knots. It may have lost a pony or two in the intervening 30+ years, but if it’s in good shape generally, there should still be ample performance.
The back to back seats fold flat to create a pair of slightly lumpy sunloungers
Seakeeping
This boat has a great hull that punched well above its weight. However this model morphed into the 220 OV a year or two later as manufacturers began including the new integral bathing platforms within the length related model designation, and confusingly Sea Ray then brought out a smaller cuddy cabin called the 200 OV, which proved a harder ride. Make sure you’re getting the correct 200 OV!
Sea Ray 200 Overnighter specifications
Length: 24ft 0in (7.3m)
Beam: 7ft 0in (2.1m)
Draft: 3ft 5in (1.0m)
Displacement: 2 tonnes
Fuel capacity: 100 litres
Engine: Mercruiser 5.7 litre V8 260hp petrol engine
For sale: Boats.co.uk
Princess 37
Built: 1979
Price: £29,950
I remember the Princess 37 being launched at the Earl’s Court Boat Show back in 1974! Admittedly I was a child at that point, my father kindly satisfying the boat obsession I had even at that age. I can still recall the glass hatches that were fitted into the saloon floor so that visitors could admire the huge Ford Mermaid diesel engines.
Interior
The Princess 37 was launched before the optimum sub-40ft flybridge layout became established, so it’s rather different to the boats that followed. On this model, the guest cabin is in the bow instead of the owner’s cabin, vee berths staggered in height so that the foot of one runs across the foot of the other. The owner’s cabin is aft of this to port, with a double bed against the aft bulkhead. It has its own en suite, completely separate to the day heads. The galley is down here too, sporting the then popular eye-level cooker and grill. The saloon on the main deck has the helm to starboard and an L-shaped settee to port. Rather than a second settee aft of the helm station, there’s a full signal flag locker too! Old skool.
The interior looks dated but this is still a perfectly usable boat with plenty of potential
Exterior
Whilst it does look dated, the Princess 37 is still a well proportioned boat. There’s no transom door, access is a scramble over the cockpit coaming, and the flybridge ladder doesn’t even go through a hatch, it is simply bolted to the back of the flybridge deck. This boat has been fitted with a full-width bathing platform, which is a very useful modification.
Performance
Princess not only offered a range of engines from displacement speed plodders at 120hp each to the biggest fitted at 300hp aside, it also offered different hulls depending on whether the engines were powerful enough to give planing performance. Lower powered boats got Y hulls, which had a long shallow keel to aid low-speed directional stability. More powerful boats were given V hulls to enable them to plane at speed. This boat, with twin 180hp Ford Mermaid engines, should have the V hull and a top speed close to 18 knots if the engines are fit.
The owner’s cabin enjoys plenty of wood cabinetry and its own ensuite facilities
Seakeeping
Stately, probably best sums up the Princess 37 at sea. Certainly not a bad boat, but very much of its era.
Princess 37 specifications
Length: 37ft 0in (11.3m)
Beam: 12ft 11in (4.0m)
Draft: 2ft 11in (0.9m)
Displacement: 9 tonnes
Fuel capacity: 800 litres
Engines: Twin Ford Mermaid 180hp diesel engines
For sale: Boats.co.uk
Crownline 270CR
Built: 2007
Price: £46,950
The challenge for boat designers is that, annoyingly, people buying shorter boats are not shorter in height, so as the length decreases and the height of the boat remains the same to accommodate a typical adult standing up, the risk is that the boat begins to look stumpy and out of proportion. There are ways around this, and Crownline utilised pretty much all of them in the design of the 270, because despite its sub 30ft length, this is a genuinely great-looking boat!
Interior
The interior is conventional. Crownline gives you standing headroom where you need it, at the base of the steps where you’ll discover a fairly basic galley to port and a wet heads with a pull-out shower to starboard. Ahead of this, the roofline tapers down, but it doesn’t matter because this is where you’ll be sat at the dinette, or sleeping, if you’ve converted it to a double bed. But you don’t need to, as there’s a second bed back behind the steps under the cockpit floor.
The cockpit still looks very clean and tidy for a 2007 boat with plenty of seating options
Exterior
Where Crownline has been clever is in giving this boat high topsides cunningly disguised by the wide blue hull band and then a very sleek and low profile superstructure. Garnish with a forward-sloping radar arch and rubbing band that sweeps down to the bathing platform, and the result is a great looking boat! In typically American fashion, side decks have been abandoned, allowing the cockpit to stretch to the edges; foredeck access is through the centre opening windscreen only. The sunbed aft can be extended by folding the aft seat backrest forward and there’s a useful ‘boot’ beneath it.
Performance
Pretty much all of these went out with a single Mercruiser 350 Magnum beneath the cockpit sole. That 350 refers to cubic inches rather than horsepower, what we would call 5.7 litres. It’s about 300hp, which is ample, giving a top speed in the high 30-knot region.
Convertible dinette is one of two double berths squeezed into this compact family cruiser
Seakeeping
We described the Crownline 270CR on test as ‘poised, balanced and comfortable, the deep vee hull landing smoothly and comfortably’. Cornering was pretty impressive too, ‘banking hard into a turn like a fast motorbike’.
Crownline 270CR specifications
Length: 27ft 0in (8.3m)
Beam: 8ft 6in (2.6m)
Draft: 3ft 2in (1.0m)
Displacement: 4 tonnes
Fuel capacity: 270 litres
Engine: Mercruiser 350 Magnum 300hp petrol engine
For sale: Burton Waters
Sealine 255 Senator
Built: 1989
Price: £19,950
In the 1980s, three of the big four British motor boat builders made boats you could tow behind a Range Rover – Sunseeker the Mustang 20, Fairline the 21 Weekend and Sealine the 195 Attaché. Indeed Sealine topped out at about 30ft with the Sealine 305 Statesman, the only flybridge boat in its range. Slap bang in the middle of its fleet, just below the 285 Ambassador and launched at the Earl’s Court Boat Show in 1987, sat the 255 Senator.
Interior
For a 25ft sportscruiser, the accommodation is really rather good. It’s the usual horseshoe of dinette in the bow that converts to a double bed and then a galley opposite the heads and a double berth beneath the cockpit, but look at the details. That double berth aft is split off from the rest of the accommodation by a door, making this a proper separate cabin, something you almost never see at this size point. The galley has a proper two-burner gas stove with a grill rather than the token single burner alcohol stove so many boats of this era got, and there are opening windows in the coachroof.
Dated interior belies a surprisingly practical family cruising machine for a sub-27ft boat
Exterior
Despite what some might claim, Tom Murrant, ex-aircraft engineer and founder of Sealine International, actually penned this one. A generous 9ft 6in beam gives space for both a decent cockpit and proper side decks. Sealine was always at the vanguard of design, which is why this boat has a transom door where many boats of this age don’t.
Performance
Options when new were a single 270hp petrol or 200hp diesel, or twin 130hp or 167hp petrols, but the twin 146hp motors fitted to this boat were the most popular. In our 1987 test these achieved 32 knots.
The transom door (a rarity for this era) makes access to the cockpit much easier
Seakeeping
Our two days of testing also served up a variety of sea conditions, “all of which the Senator coped with well for a boat of its size”.
Sealine 255 Senator specifications
Length: 26ft 6in (8.1m)
Beam: 9ft 6in (2.6m)
Draft: 3ft 3in (1.0m)
Displacement: 3 tonnes
Fuel capacity: 385 litres
Engines: Twin Volvo Penta AQ151 146hp petrol engines
For sale: Tingdene
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