I'm looking at possibly buying a 2001 18' Nautico by Seagull with a 2001 Mercury 90hp 2-stroke in overall good shape. I've been in bigger cats, loved the ride and thought this would be an affordable, smaller alternative. My test ride this weedend didn't provide expected results. The 90 Merc exceeds the maximum rating of 75HP but is relatively light (303 lbs.) yet only pushed the boat to 28 mph GPS. It felt sluggish out of the hole and labored in turns, cavitated on re-acceleration, and threw up a lot of water vertically between the transom and motor. My thoughts are the motor could be set-up improperly or if there is foam in the pontoons they could be saturated (of course unless they were evenly saturated the boat would list, which it didn't). Or, is this how they ride and the reason Seagull is out of business? The Merc has a 4 blade prop of unknown pitch and turned 5000 rpm WOT. It's hard to determine if motor height is correct since there is no bottom of the boat there, only a protrusion that looks to protect the foot from impacts. I've seen several for sale and they had Suzuki 70hp 4-strokes, which is only slightly heavier but would seem under-powered from my weekend experience. And if I got the boat I would want to re-power with a 4-stroke. Any experience or comments greatly appreciated, thanks- LP.
