I have a 1987 FourWinns 225 Sundowner w/ the 5.7 Mag (early addition 350ci,
260 horse,alpha 1)
the boat weighs 4100 dry then add for 70 gal of fuel. I use 10 gal. an hour
at 3200 rpm. I boat srictly on the Mississipi River. I do however only use
89 octane fuel which I get at the local marina. Wide open throtle 43 miles
an hour with my wife on board and fully loaded for a weekend. The prop is a
std. mercruiser 19 pitch stainless. The boat cruseis at 27 mph., and wide
open throttle gets 4600 rpm. The trick as you probably know is to properly
pitch the boat to the for the type of boating that you are doing. The cutty
is very big with a small stand up head. Headroom is approx. 5.6'. I should
also mention the hull is painted with anti -fouling which I only started
using 4 years ago and did not loose any performance. So I guess what i"m
trying to say is on avg. I get 2.5 miles to the gal. I feel if you have to
worry about fuel economy maybe you should not get in to boating. :-)
1. The Crownline is more desireable to me because it seems to be one
of the largest cuddy cruisers before moving into the aft-cabins.
However, power on the used ones seems to be a bit marginal at best.
One i'm interested in has the Merc 5.7 EFI 260HP / Bravo III. Dry
weight is approx. 4500 lbs.

2. The Rinker is smaller, but always seems to have decent engine
packages. The one i'm interested in has the Merc 5.7 Mag MPI / Bravo
III with thru-hull (switchable to thru-hub) exhaust. Dry weight is
approx. 4200. lbs.


Although dry weight says they're not much different, the Crownline
seems substantially bigger than the Rinker. My question is, what kind
of speed and, just as importantly, fuel economy differences will i see
between these two boats? In the boats i've seen it in, the 5.7 Mag
gets surprising economy as well as packs a good punch.

Thanks, -JZ