Yeah, we were looking at several boats, a Tiara 25, Skipjack 24, the Sea Ox 20. When you stick your head in the bilge, the Tiara quality is tops. Huge gel coated glass stringers, for example, better than Tolly, who also does it great. The Skippy has the best fishing layout and well built, but has that rep of transom and stringer rot. I never warmed up to the Sea Ox, due to the WA layout, prefer the cuddy.
As for the weight aft, we were going to carry our 6-man valise rescue platform, fishing tackle, rods, porta potty, ditch bag and heavy weather clothing in the bow. Hoped it would offset the kicker. We fish on the wire most of the time and the kicker is required to keep you around 2 knots. That keeps the balls down when you are in the 100-200' depth range.
Hope we are not making a mistake with the small SeaCraft here for this type of ocean fishing.
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