Looking at a New 21' or a 2000 23'

[capemaychef]

Hi, newbie here....we are currently try to downsize from our 27' Albemarle...we purchased the boat last year with the thoughts of canyon fishing often...we never once reached the canyon and only used the rig 14 times....now onto my question...

We are looking at getting a leftover 21' new or a 2000 23' rigged with twin 135 merc optimax...I heard they had some issues but if they were corrected bomb proof engines? What fuel burn could I expect from the 135's on the 23? We will be fishing the back bays, delaware bay/rips/out to 20-30 miles weather permitting. Most of our fishing will be from drift, how do both of these drift fish? What engine would you recommed for the 21'? 225 etec I was thinking? Any and all information I would greatly appreciate.

[eggsuckindog]

The Opti's are in a borderline time frame and I'm not sure exactly when they got them ironed out. You don't need that much HP on the 20/21, not sure what the weight is, mine is 1650 dry with a 200 and its more than enough.

[Fr. Frank]

From what I read on Scream-n-Fly, the first year that the V6 Optimax engines were all OK was '03. Most of the '02 lot is good, it depends on date of mfg, which ya gotta look up by serial #
The smaller Optimax 3 & 4 cyl (70-125 hp) were supposedly all good by late '01.

Like many engine series from different mfg, there was more than one problem, although the EFI system running lean was a common complaint, as was oil injection/mixing failure. The downside is that you cannot disconnect the oil injection system on an Opti, as that will cause it to run lean all the time. For a while, I saw someone who was writing about reprogramming the computer to allow the use of premix, but I don't have any details.

My 2 cents? Go with the 21' with a single 200-250 hp OB, and a 6-8 hp kicker motor for emergencies and trolling.

The kicker will bring you in from a long way out if you're patient. I once came in on a friend's 25' Robalo all the way from Jack Tar at West End, Grand Bahama being pushed by an '73 or '74 Chrysler 15 hp. That's 55 miles of open Atlantic across the Gulf Stream.
We hit a coral head with the main motor the day before and cracked open the lower unit. It took us 12 1/2 hours to go from West End to Palm Beach. The kicker motor ran like a champ non-stop. Cheaper than twin motors, and still bring you home. I even have a 2 hp kicker on my wife's 17' Carolina Skiff next to the 90 Optimax.

[Briguy]

Fishing 20-30 miles off shore in the Cape May area you NEED the 23'. Twin opti's should burn about 12gph at 30mph. This is just an educated guess based on the fact I have twin 115's 4 strokes that burn 10.5 gph at roughly 26 mph at 4k cruise. Get the motors checked out by a tech and have them run the computers. If the motors made it this far they might be good ones.

[capemaychef]

we are currently in a 27' Albemarle that we purchased last year...we didn't get out past 15 miles so we need to downsize. 80% of our fishing will be from drift/anchor...either in the delaware bay, back bays rips etc...we will only probably run the new boat to 20-30 5-8 times maybe...so the 21 would be fine...when we do run there...we pick our days anyway. The 135's I believe have had all their updates and the boat looks like it's in great shape...just need to move our current beast...