Hi all,

Looking for reviews of 1993 sea ray laguna 18'.

Anyone own one of these and can recommend?
Pros Cons?
I live in Jacksonville, FL and would be using it mostly in the St.
Johns river for pleasure and skiing.
How hard is it to attach a bimini to shelter the seats behind an in
front of the cockpit?
How many people can it hold comfortably?

Thank you, chad.

On Jun 29, 5:19 pm, ebeard wrote:
Hi all,

Looking for reviews of 1993 sea ray laguna 18'.

Anyone own one of these and can recommend?
Pros Cons?
I live in Jacksonville, FL and would be using it mostly in the St.
Johns river for pleasure and skiing.
How hard is it to attach a bimini to shelter the seats behind an in
front of the cockpit?
How many people can it hold comfortably?

Thank you, chad.

I have a 1995 Sea Ray Laguna 18-ft center console; it is described as
a "bay boat". I "assume" it is very similar to the 1993 model.
Honestly, it is still parking in the driveway waiting for me to fix
its deck. This means I don't really have much practical experience to
share with you on this boat.

When the dealer gave us a test ride in inland water, it started
planing fast and ran quite fast using a 115hp 2-stroke Mercury motor,
and it had 4 adults on it (two medium built males, one thin male, and
one skinny female, like total 550-lb to 600-lb).

My boat doesn't have a built-in livewell. When I open the front seat,
it is just a hole to be a secondary access door to the inside of the
console. I have a feeling that it is meant to be for a livewell.

My boat has two boxy structures in the left side and the right side of
the stern that are meant to have a seat on each. Mine don't come with
the seat. I guess I could have put an external oil tank in one of the
box to feed 2-stroke oil to the motor. But the motor that I have has
an internal oil reservior; therefore, I don't need an external oil
tank. Therefore, those two boxy structures don't really do anything
to me. I am planning to cut them out.

The floor and the cap of the gunwale are all in one piece. This
means if I need to replace the fuel tank, I will have to cut open the
floor.

This boat has very little storage spaces. I have a feeling that most
misc. stuffs will end up on the floor. It has a anchor locker at the
bow, a fish box at the rised platform at the bow, some storage inside
the console, the cooler that is double as a seat for the captain,
gunwale rod storage that can hole 4 rods total, and those two useless
boxy structures at the stern. You may need to cut holes in the
gunwale to add some storage boxes.

The front seat is good for one big adult male or two skinny persons.
The seat (the cooler) for the captain is slightly bigger. This
probably doesn't matter because the captain is likely to be standing
anyway. Even if the boat had seat on those two boxy structures at the
stern, I would not recommend people to sit there when the boat was
under way. The narrow seat and the fact that the seat would be very
close to the motor doesn't sound like a safe or comfortable
combination.

The boat didn't have a T-top when the original owner purchased it. He
retrofit a T-top on the boat. But the installation of the T-top was
probably not good (that was probably the reason why the floor was
rotten). By the way, I would not mind having a bimini top because it
tends to be bigger than a T-top. But I am not sure if we can have the
bimini top opened when the boat is under way. If I had to close the
bimini top when the boat is under way, I would rather having a T-top
instead of a bimini top.

One more thing is that the T-top only have two legs anchored on the
floor. Most T-top that I have seen tend to have 4 legs on the floor.
My T-top needs to have four attaching points to attach itself to the
fiberglass console, and that is how it can remain stable even though
it has two legs on the floor. Honestly, I am not sure if this is such
a good idea to depend on the attachment to the console in place of
attaching to the floor. I would rather a T-top that has 4 legs
instead of just 2.

As mentioned above, the boat has storage for 4 fishing rods in the
gunwale. It also has 3 rods holder on the side of the console; but
these 3 may become impractical if you add a T-top or a bimini top
because there is not enough head room under the T-top or the bimini
top for fishing rods.

Please note that the boat doesn't have a head (a tiolet).

I am not sure if it is good for skiing because I have never tried, and
I don't like skiing anyway. I guess if I don't overload the boat with
people, I probably can use my boat for skiing.

Please double check the floor area behind the captain seat (the
cooler). That area spans a large area without any intermediate
bracing. And the inspection holes in that area were not properly
sealed; they just cut a hole on the floor and caulk around the hole
cover. This means water can get into the basil wood inside the floor
and rot the floor. If you feel the floor is bouncy in that area, you
will need to repair the floor if you decide to buy it. The rest of
the floor is very well supported; therefore, you would not feel bouncy
even if the basil wood inside the floor was totally rotten.

Hope this helps.

Jay Chan