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Offshore Boat Question

6K views 33 replies 17 participants last post by  yfarmcsy 
#1 ·
In the market to get an offshore boat, how much range for a 30' boat would anyone suggest I get? In other words, are the best rips beyond or around the Shelf margin around 65 nm out of Freeport? If so how far are the typical rips so I can fish for bluewater pelagics? Any help is appreciated.
 
#2 ·
Depends on what exactly you are looking to fish for... water depth is more important and a reliable metric for pelagics than reliability of rips. You need at least 400 FOW which starts at about 80 miles from Freeport for marlin and tuna. The shelf is roughly 90-95 miles from Freeport. BFT and AJs can be caught in 200 FOW which basically starts at 60 miles. Kings and cobia can be caught within.

If you are most interested in trolling for pelagics, i'd make sure you have close to a 400 mile range to ensure you have enough gas in reserve. An average bluewater trip for pelagics out of freeport is between 250 and 350 miles round trip.
 
#3 ·
If you plan to consistently target pelagics out of Freeport, Matagorda or Galveston you need to be able to have an operational range of 250-350 statue miles round trip. Most of our trips fall inside of that range in our 32 ft boat. Our boat holds 290 gallons in the main tank and on our trips that exceed 250 miles we bring auxiliary fuel in drums. Usually an extra 75-130 gallons of additional fuel. You want to make sure you have plenty of reserves as well in case you get into bad weather and you have to reroute to go around the bad weather. Usually we hit the dock after a trip with a minimum of 65-80 gallons left in reserve. The last thing you want to be worried about is “do we have enough gas to go around these storms?”. You will want to visit the floating spar rigs eventually if you are wanting to target tuna and billfish and the closest spar is 115 miles out of Freeport. Hope this helps!


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#4 ·
Subscribe to a service like Hilton's Realtime-Navigator to take out some of the frustration of running 65 miles and not finding sea conditions you are looking for. It shows where there are rips and other useful tools to help plan a route for each trip. Conditions are always changing.
 
#5 ·
This is an opinion and only an opinion, however, I would suggest enough range to run 400 miles with a 10-15% reserve like many others.

65nm out of Freeport is just getting into good fishing grounds for anything other than the plague of endangered red snapper. The sky is the limit from there. Fuel storage is only half the factor. Efficiency is the other half.

A 30'CC with twin 300s that cruises at 30-35kt with a 1.1-1.2mpg efficiency will need more fuel than a 30' with twin 225s that cruises at 27-28kt with a 1.8-2.0mpg efficiency.

A lot of factors in determining the range of a boat. Biggest is the operator's experience and seaworthiness.
 
#6 ·
This is an opinion and only an opinion, however, I would suggest enough range to run 400 miles with a 10-15% reserve like many others.

65nm out of Freeport is just getting into good fishing grounds for anything other than the plague of endangered red snapper. The sky is the limit from there. Fuel storage is only half the factor. Efficiency is the other half.

A 30'CC with twin 300s that cruises at 30-35kt with a 1.1-1.2mpg efficiency will need more fuel than a 30' with twin 225s that cruises at 27-28kt with a 1.8-2.0mpg efficiency.

A lot of factors in determining the range of a boat. Biggest is the operator's experience and seaworthiness.
I will echo, get something that has a lot of range. I have a 29' Everglades which has a 200 Gallon tank and I get 1.8-2.0 when on flat seas (I was getting 2.2 at 34mph and 3900RPM on lake Travis the other day) but loaded for a trip and in sporty seas I'm closer to 1.4 real world. I have range anxiety and won't plan a trip past 80 miles unless I bring a bladder. I fish out of POC so that can still get to real fishing but the further up the coast you get the more range you need.

I've looked at upgrading my boat to something in the 36ft range with closer to 400-500 miles range but won't do so until my kids are old enough to fish with me.

The range of my boat in FL wouldn't be a problem. My brother has to run about half to 2/3's the distance I do for similar fishing unless they are fishing the otherside.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for the great info everyone. This helps and gives me scope of vessels to aim for. I was anticipating the need for at least 300 nm of fuel, so was close, in addition to enough fuel to go around storms as was suggested. The issue is with size and fuel, except for a few boats, mileage doesnt increase significantly. So range appears to be the name of the game. Looks like an efficient hull with a lot of fuel; contender, seavee, possibly a grady 306 canyon or 300 marlin although grady less so. All hold close to 300 g fuel w contender and seavee more. Ive looked at boats for 2 years and these look like best options, anyone else on brands models? Likes dislikes?
 
#10 ·
SeaHunter 31 checks all the boxes for Texas offshore fishing for me in the 30' size range.

But your search is to large. You are listing walkarounds in the same sentence as hardcore three piece deep-V CC's. Going to have to many choices until you narrow down your search. Some of the basic questions that need to be answered are below, that will help narrow it down some.

Budget?
new or used?
hardcore fishing CC?
fishing/family CC?
walkaround?
 
#9 ·
Find the size boat you want, Then find one with the biggest fuel option you can find. Then make it as efficient as you can, find the right motors for the hull, play with props and motor height, load it for fishing so it rides properly and doesn’t sit stern heavy And plow thru the water all while killing your fuel burn. Lots of little tricks you can do to squeeze the most out of your econ, cause fishing offshore around here, you need to have all you can get. Our 31’ holds 430 gallons under deck, realistically offshore key on to key off, we are a 1.3-1.4mpg boat on a normal 2’-3’ wave height trip
SeaVee and GW will ride nice but won’t get the Econ of a yellowfin or contender
 
#12 ·
Thx Jolly Roger. Ive looked at walkarounds however most are used, i will be purchasing new. There arent many walkarounds out there new aside from Grady, century, belzona, proline etc and i am leaning towards foam flotation. Most walkarounds now are custom builds. So im left with opens, i.e. center consoles. I like the seahunter 31 however after seeing a large crack along the keel line a few years back almost sink some guys off florida, i had to eliminate them as an option.
 
#13 · (Edited)
good luck, you are all over the place with this question.

And if "almost sinking" takes a boat off the list, might as well take them all off. Not one made that at some point did not have one sink or almost sink.

FYI about the cracked SeaHunter, it was an impact. Kinda impressive it had that much damage and still made it back to port.

From Seahunter's Facebook page;

I wanted to take a moment to address the SeaHunter Family regarding the 2007 SH35 that was involved in the emergency event this past weekend. I will post a short video here to address several personal texts and emails asking Â"what happenedÂ". Simply put, the hull suffered impact damage. There is zero delamination in the hull. The entire hull bottom is solid and in tact minus a cut in the hull bottom that cut several layers of fiberglass and Kevlar clean, as if cut by a knife. Along the entire length of the damage the material is in tact, you canÂ't even wedge a knife point between the layers of laminate.

Right now our attention is to helping the owner with his insurance claim. We are trying to focus on being a professional and responsible builder even though I personally feel very few manufactures would assist a third owner of a 13 year old boat. Hopefully this will be the end of Seahunter Boats having to explain that we have over 700 boats in service with no history of hull failure or delamination. We are by no means perfect but have always been accountable to our customers.

Make no mistake about it, this 13 year old boat saved the occupants from a near death experience, even though the result was serious and scary for them. The boat got them home from 45 miles offshore without sinking and got back on its trailer. If anyone would like to inspect the boat personally feel free to visit the factory in Homestead. You might like what you see and the people you meet. Hopefully the people who bashed and shared the chaos Of the original post will do the same here. Once the insurance adjusters and surveyors finish their reports we can post more videos.
 
#15 ·
I'd put invincible at the top of your list. The 33 Open CC monohull and 35 cat are both two very impressive platforms with large fuel capacities and extended ranges.

The 35 Inv Cat holds at least 500 gallons of fuel. Invincible also has a local dealer at Surfside Marina.
 
#18 ·
Thanks for all the input guys. I realize there are a lot of options, but it seems readily apparent range reigns supreme. That eliminates several boats and brands especially if i need 350-400 mile range (for safety in a trailerable center console). I have looked at basically all of them and in the 30-34’ range appears that contender, yellowfin, invincible, sea hunter, seavee, grady canyon 306, magbay 33, etc. while i never meant for the thread to turn into boat brands or types, i just wanted to get an idea of range needed for bluewater species and TYPICAL distance to rip, im aware it changes. Species to target, bft, yft, wahoo, mahi, possibly sails, also possible deep drops. Of course grouper and snappers at times. Any other input appreciated.
 
#20 ·
I'll give you some good advice ....go look at the 28ft Carolina Classic that Texas Sportfishing Yacht sales has....it's a 1995 model with 2005 volvo 240 hp diesel engines...this boat burns 16 gals per hour and will cruise about 24kts will run about 30 kts wide open ...engines have low hrs and boat has alot of bells and whistles all for like 45,000.00...this is a great boat to go chase billfish and pelagics ! Very low hrs on the engines....
 
#21 ·
Did a 450 mile trip 2 weeks ago, 312gals used, boat holds 308, and had 50 gal bladder. You want range,ride and speed buy a modern cat. Boat I was on has foam adequate to float if holed sponson. 31 Prowler. Only large cat company that does this with all their hulls. No need to carry liferaft.
 
#23 ·
On my trip the weather forecast was for 1-2s with calm winds, we left the dock at 8pm and started to run NE to Boomvang into solid 3s with occasional 4s straight on. Over the next 2 days we were out never saw 1-2s, always 3-4s with squalls and lightning. Talked to a guy at Boomvang out of Freeport in a 31 Contender asked if we ran out of Port A to Boomvang, said his boat was a 1-2 ft boat otherwise beat him up. My point being is that some high performance v hulls have to run on top and in many sea conditions you simply cant. Whatever you buy, sea trial in the conditions you are going to use the boat in. I used a 34 SeaVee to run to Perdido, was a high quality well designed hull but no comparison to my Freeman in south Texas sea conditions.
 
#28 ·
I’ve caught yellowfin at 55 miles before and been skunked at 110. You never know out there. Get something safe for
60 miles
And sailfish have been caught within the sight of shore... but I guarantee you, you will get skunked fishing for yellowfin at 55 miles more times than you will fishing the floaters at 110...

If only fishing 60 miles from freeport, you will not be reliably catching pelagic species such as blue & white marlin, yellowfin tuna, and wahoo. Can it happen? Sure... its fishing, but to have any reliable chance out freeport, you need 400+ FOW which doesn't really start until 80 miles out or so.
 
#29 ·
If OP is 61 as his profile suggests, he must be a badazz to want to get started running 100+ miles out in a 30' range CC! I hope I still can do it when I'm 60. My dad caught his last tuna at about 75 so there is hope.

I run a Seahunter, good boat. Fast and solid, 10 years with very few issues. Build quality is very good and the few build/design items I have had problems with have been resolved on newer boats.

I just re-powered so it'll be a few before I'm in the market, but I would certainly entertain a cat. Softer landings and loads of fishing space are huge plusses. There is a reason there is a long wait for Freemans and Invincible, Seahunter and others have started into the cat game.

Good luck!
 
#30 ·
Not the deepest pockets (can u say check or credit card- lol) and no real badazz either, just a strong faith and calculated risk and have been in 20+ seas in an offshore crew boat out of Louisiana. Been on the coast all of my existence and realize bad stuff can happen quickly. As i havent been to floaters, except by crew boat; and fish out of my bay boat to 35 nm when the conditions allow, anything beyond the edge i will likely buddy boat. I have a decent sense of direction, know the ocean and surfed in my youth. Want range to bypass any storms and get to bluewater. Im very mindful of weather and realize how quick it can change. Any boat will be equipped with full radar, all safety gear, sat phone, epirb, life raft and ditch bag, first aid kits, with complete redundancy where i can. Its taking a chance every time you leave the dock, so the plan is to minimize risk, use good sea sense and be prepared for anything.
 
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