Gary H NC
Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2005
- Messages
- 8,972
Myself as a forum member and
iboats.com was invited to a US Marine (Bayliner, Maxum) media event. A group of magazine writers and other media folks (like us) were invited to see and test some new and improved boats in their lines.
One of the eleven boats we checked out was the Bayliner 205. It?s a family bow rider with a wakeboard tower and extended swim platform they decorated up with some nicely done graphics. It?s powered by a Mercury/MerCruiser 5 liter engine driving an Alpha One stern drive. It?s 37 gallon fuel tank gives it good range and when full, adds almost 260 pounds of weight to this nearly 23? boat. And, as you?ll read below, the boat never noticed it.
With the popularity of wakeboarding, many boat builders started adding fancy graphics and wakeboard towers to their boats. Some boats responded well to the addition of the towers and others didn?t. You can?t just add hot graphics and a wakeboard tower to any boat and expect it to truly provide beginner to advanced level of recreational wakeboarders with a good wake and good boating platform. The Bayliner 205 with the ?Flight? package delivers a boating family a very nice, stern drive powered, bow rider and overall great, economical watersports boat.
The boat we tested had a strongly mounted, custom tower that aided movement around the boat rather than hindering it. The tower tubes are beefy and although this boat didn?t have any additional toy-mounting accessories, many are available. You can add speakers, board and ski mounts, lights, antenna, etc. to the tower. All those mounting pieces help keep you from tripping over board, skis and tow ropes that usually litter the floor space of a watersports boat. I?m sure you could even mount a multi-person tube up there.
There?s a lot of boat packed into 20?5?. It?s a bow rider and sitting in the bow is comfortable. The seat backs are cushy and the gunwales are high enough to be relatively secure for smaller kids. There?s a stainless steel grab rail along the port and starboard gunwale. It?s handy for passengers to hang on to while under way and you can tie a fender on it at the dock. Behind the seat backs which are below the windscreen there is storage for smaller/shorter items and there?s lots of storage below the seats. The cockpit is carpeted as is the bow area. A nice feature but I?d rather see the snap in carpeting over a fiberglass deck. It?s easier to keep clean. Access to the bow is traditionally through the hinged windscreen and this boat is no different. The windscreen opens easily and is well supported when open although I?d recommend a tie down of some sorts when it is open. The passageway is roomy. It?s not big enough for two-way traffic but even some of us larger boaters won?t have a problem heading forward.
The cockpit is large enough for the twin bucket seats side and rear bench seats to not take up room to easily move around. There?s storage space below the cockpit floor (cabin sole) long enough for skis and boat hooks. The access hatch to the below deck storage is very large but isn?t hinged. It also has a stainless steel vent that not only lets moist air out but lets water in. There?s better ways to vent this storage area. You can keep wallets, maps, cell phones, PDA?s and other small items dry inside the passenger side, locking ?glove box?. Bayliner put a lot of thought into cockpit storage. Consumers made their voices clear they needed more than just a place to stick skis. Bayliner responded. There?s storage in every nook and cranny imaginable. They even install a storage map under some of the seats so you can find where all the storage areas are located. They also added more dry storage along the starboard gunwale just ahead of the convenient walk-through from the swim platform.
The helm is easy to flop in to and provided plenty of leg room for tall boaters. The styling of the instrument panel is attractive and intelligent. The dark gray, non-reflective console hood makes reading the instruments easier and faster, eliminating sun glare or blinding reflection. There?s a small shelf built into the console for you to rest your sun glasses or portable GPS. The side of the windscreen is curved back and along the side of the boat far enough to keep those sunglasses or GPS inside the boat when they go sliding off that little shelf in a hard turn. You?ll want to use your GPS or borrow one to prove to everyone you truly are driving a 50 mph boat powered by a 5 Liter stern drive. The speedo says you?re going 57 mph but don?t believe it. We were impressed with 50. There were three of us in the boat with a full tank of fuel. That?s a great speed for this size and powered boat. It?s plenty fast for barefooting or just zipping across the lake to visit friends. Hanging on to the steering wheel at 50 is no real chore. The boat is easy to trim for neutral steering. The throttle/shift handle is conveniently located and you won?t mash any knuckles when pushing it to WOT. This test boat was equipped with a premium sound package. Bayliner enlisted the sound system manufacturer to check out the installation on all their boats. They found some interesting results. Some of the speakers were aimed so they would cause the sound waves from each speaker to ?attack? each other and make for very poor sound quality. They mounted some of the speakers in different locations or with small bezels to offset the direction of the sound waves and dramatically improved the overall sound quality for the boats. That?s sound engineering? literally.
That convenient walk-through from the cockpit to the swim platform is right next to (along the starboard side) the engine hatch cover. There?s even more storage under the anti-skid patterned walk-through. The engine hatch cover also serves as a sun platform. The hatch cover is secured by a latch which could be a little easier to find (unless you read the owner?s manual for the boat; which we didn?t). The hatch is almost 5? wide making servicing the engine or batteries very easy. Inside the engine compartment is the smooth running 220hp Mercury/MerCruiser 5 Liter engine driving a Mercury/MerCruiser Alpha One drive. I?ve had some hatch covers drop back on to my head when I was digging around inside an engine compartment and I was very happy to see two pneumatic shocks supporting the cover/sun deck. When getting ready to start any stern drive or inboard engine you are always wise to run your engine compartment blowers to exhaust any combustible fumes. Bayliner has located their intake and exhaust vents for the blowers out the transom of the boat for quieter operation. Good move.
Out the back of the boat is the integrally molded swim platform you?d see on most family bow riders. Although not installed on this boat, there a small hatch for a fold-out boarding ladder. Without the ladder, that compartment could house a swim platform shower system. The reason this boat didn?t have the boarding ladder was because there was an additional, extended swim platform installed behind the integral platform. It isn?t big enough to have a family pick-nick on but it?s huge. That?s a really nice feature when you?re putting on skis or a wakeboard or jumping into a tube from the platform. When idling around, it also serves as a sound suppressor to help keep engine noise down to a minimum. It?s a few inches lower than the integral swim platform also aiding in getting into or out of the water. There?s a stainless steel tow eye located on the transom for conventional towing of skiers or tubes. Make sure the engine is off when folks are on or near the platform. Safety first. And, they don?t want to smell the engine exhaust any more than you do.
The boat has nice design features and runs well. It comes up on plane quickly with an average amount of bow rise. It fell on to plane around 16mph and could easily stay on plane around that speed. It cruised along very comfortably at 24 mph using 2,800rpm to do so. It seemed to be propped well for all around boating. It had an aluminum prop but we couldn?t determine the pitch. Its top speed was 50mph at 4,850rpm. That?s hard to beat for a brand new boat with three adults on board. It may improve with some use but we were satisfied with that.
Stern drive boats have the same trim feature as outboard powered boats. They can trim the drive and help drag the back end of the boat deep into the water. That?s great for wakeboarding and this boat can make a sizeable hole in the water and tall wake behind it. At skiing speeds it had a little bit of a high table but nothing prohibitive. Barefooters would want to use a longer line to stay well behind the prop turbulence. At 40mph, for barefooting, some of the turbulence and wake was reduced than at the full 50mph. Boarders will want to adjust their rope length to catch the best height of the wake before it brakes.
Sometimes a boat company gets lucky when they design a boat hull and sometimes they are just plain good. Bayliner did both with this boat. It sticks to the water like glue. At full speed we wrenched the boat into a full and hard turn to port. We tried to make the stern break free and couldn?t. We kept it trimmed out (nose higher) and she just dug in like a tournament ski boat with keel skegs. We were so impressed; we had to do it again? and again? and again. And in each direction. We were having way too much fun and the boat was responding way too well. We did typical button-hook turns as if we had a skier or boarder behind us. It tracked as if it were on rails at a theme park ride. At wakeboarding speeds it produced some nice double-up wakes in the hook turns.
It has room for cruising around the lake with friends, power for towing all sorts of toys and is a stable boating platform. It comes with a Bimini but we didn?t put it up. A long day in the sun would make that a welcome accessory.
This is pretty decent all around family bow rider boat. The sticker on this particular test boat, on a trailer is just over $30k. About the price of a mini-van.
iboats.com was invited to a US Marine (Bayliner, Maxum) media event. A group of magazine writers and other media folks (like us) were invited to see and test some new and improved boats in their lines.
One of the eleven boats we checked out was the Bayliner 205. It?s a family bow rider with a wakeboard tower and extended swim platform they decorated up with some nicely done graphics. It?s powered by a Mercury/MerCruiser 5 liter engine driving an Alpha One stern drive. It?s 37 gallon fuel tank gives it good range and when full, adds almost 260 pounds of weight to this nearly 23? boat. And, as you?ll read below, the boat never noticed it.
With the popularity of wakeboarding, many boat builders started adding fancy graphics and wakeboard towers to their boats. Some boats responded well to the addition of the towers and others didn?t. You can?t just add hot graphics and a wakeboard tower to any boat and expect it to truly provide beginner to advanced level of recreational wakeboarders with a good wake and good boating platform. The Bayliner 205 with the ?Flight? package delivers a boating family a very nice, stern drive powered, bow rider and overall great, economical watersports boat.
The boat we tested had a strongly mounted, custom tower that aided movement around the boat rather than hindering it. The tower tubes are beefy and although this boat didn?t have any additional toy-mounting accessories, many are available. You can add speakers, board and ski mounts, lights, antenna, etc. to the tower. All those mounting pieces help keep you from tripping over board, skis and tow ropes that usually litter the floor space of a watersports boat. I?m sure you could even mount a multi-person tube up there.
There?s a lot of boat packed into 20?5?. It?s a bow rider and sitting in the bow is comfortable. The seat backs are cushy and the gunwales are high enough to be relatively secure for smaller kids. There?s a stainless steel grab rail along the port and starboard gunwale. It?s handy for passengers to hang on to while under way and you can tie a fender on it at the dock. Behind the seat backs which are below the windscreen there is storage for smaller/shorter items and there?s lots of storage below the seats. The cockpit is carpeted as is the bow area. A nice feature but I?d rather see the snap in carpeting over a fiberglass deck. It?s easier to keep clean. Access to the bow is traditionally through the hinged windscreen and this boat is no different. The windscreen opens easily and is well supported when open although I?d recommend a tie down of some sorts when it is open. The passageway is roomy. It?s not big enough for two-way traffic but even some of us larger boaters won?t have a problem heading forward.
The cockpit is large enough for the twin bucket seats side and rear bench seats to not take up room to easily move around. There?s storage space below the cockpit floor (cabin sole) long enough for skis and boat hooks. The access hatch to the below deck storage is very large but isn?t hinged. It also has a stainless steel vent that not only lets moist air out but lets water in. There?s better ways to vent this storage area. You can keep wallets, maps, cell phones, PDA?s and other small items dry inside the passenger side, locking ?glove box?. Bayliner put a lot of thought into cockpit storage. Consumers made their voices clear they needed more than just a place to stick skis. Bayliner responded. There?s storage in every nook and cranny imaginable. They even install a storage map under some of the seats so you can find where all the storage areas are located. They also added more dry storage along the starboard gunwale just ahead of the convenient walk-through from the swim platform.
The helm is easy to flop in to and provided plenty of leg room for tall boaters. The styling of the instrument panel is attractive and intelligent. The dark gray, non-reflective console hood makes reading the instruments easier and faster, eliminating sun glare or blinding reflection. There?s a small shelf built into the console for you to rest your sun glasses or portable GPS. The side of the windscreen is curved back and along the side of the boat far enough to keep those sunglasses or GPS inside the boat when they go sliding off that little shelf in a hard turn. You?ll want to use your GPS or borrow one to prove to everyone you truly are driving a 50 mph boat powered by a 5 Liter stern drive. The speedo says you?re going 57 mph but don?t believe it. We were impressed with 50. There were three of us in the boat with a full tank of fuel. That?s a great speed for this size and powered boat. It?s plenty fast for barefooting or just zipping across the lake to visit friends. Hanging on to the steering wheel at 50 is no real chore. The boat is easy to trim for neutral steering. The throttle/shift handle is conveniently located and you won?t mash any knuckles when pushing it to WOT. This test boat was equipped with a premium sound package. Bayliner enlisted the sound system manufacturer to check out the installation on all their boats. They found some interesting results. Some of the speakers were aimed so they would cause the sound waves from each speaker to ?attack? each other and make for very poor sound quality. They mounted some of the speakers in different locations or with small bezels to offset the direction of the sound waves and dramatically improved the overall sound quality for the boats. That?s sound engineering? literally.
That convenient walk-through from the cockpit to the swim platform is right next to (along the starboard side) the engine hatch cover. There?s even more storage under the anti-skid patterned walk-through. The engine hatch cover also serves as a sun platform. The hatch cover is secured by a latch which could be a little easier to find (unless you read the owner?s manual for the boat; which we didn?t). The hatch is almost 5? wide making servicing the engine or batteries very easy. Inside the engine compartment is the smooth running 220hp Mercury/MerCruiser 5 Liter engine driving a Mercury/MerCruiser Alpha One drive. I?ve had some hatch covers drop back on to my head when I was digging around inside an engine compartment and I was very happy to see two pneumatic shocks supporting the cover/sun deck. When getting ready to start any stern drive or inboard engine you are always wise to run your engine compartment blowers to exhaust any combustible fumes. Bayliner has located their intake and exhaust vents for the blowers out the transom of the boat for quieter operation. Good move.
Out the back of the boat is the integrally molded swim platform you?d see on most family bow riders. Although not installed on this boat, there a small hatch for a fold-out boarding ladder. Without the ladder, that compartment could house a swim platform shower system. The reason this boat didn?t have the boarding ladder was because there was an additional, extended swim platform installed behind the integral platform. It isn?t big enough to have a family pick-nick on but it?s huge. That?s a really nice feature when you?re putting on skis or a wakeboard or jumping into a tube from the platform. When idling around, it also serves as a sound suppressor to help keep engine noise down to a minimum. It?s a few inches lower than the integral swim platform also aiding in getting into or out of the water. There?s a stainless steel tow eye located on the transom for conventional towing of skiers or tubes. Make sure the engine is off when folks are on or near the platform. Safety first. And, they don?t want to smell the engine exhaust any more than you do.
The boat has nice design features and runs well. It comes up on plane quickly with an average amount of bow rise. It fell on to plane around 16mph and could easily stay on plane around that speed. It cruised along very comfortably at 24 mph using 2,800rpm to do so. It seemed to be propped well for all around boating. It had an aluminum prop but we couldn?t determine the pitch. Its top speed was 50mph at 4,850rpm. That?s hard to beat for a brand new boat with three adults on board. It may improve with some use but we were satisfied with that.
Stern drive boats have the same trim feature as outboard powered boats. They can trim the drive and help drag the back end of the boat deep into the water. That?s great for wakeboarding and this boat can make a sizeable hole in the water and tall wake behind it. At skiing speeds it had a little bit of a high table but nothing prohibitive. Barefooters would want to use a longer line to stay well behind the prop turbulence. At 40mph, for barefooting, some of the turbulence and wake was reduced than at the full 50mph. Boarders will want to adjust their rope length to catch the best height of the wake before it brakes.
Sometimes a boat company gets lucky when they design a boat hull and sometimes they are just plain good. Bayliner did both with this boat. It sticks to the water like glue. At full speed we wrenched the boat into a full and hard turn to port. We tried to make the stern break free and couldn?t. We kept it trimmed out (nose higher) and she just dug in like a tournament ski boat with keel skegs. We were so impressed; we had to do it again? and again? and again. And in each direction. We were having way too much fun and the boat was responding way too well. We did typical button-hook turns as if we had a skier or boarder behind us. It tracked as if it were on rails at a theme park ride. At wakeboarding speeds it produced some nice double-up wakes in the hook turns.
It has room for cruising around the lake with friends, power for towing all sorts of toys and is a stable boating platform. It comes with a Bimini but we didn?t put it up. A long day in the sun would make that a welcome accessory.
This is pretty decent all around family bow rider boat. The sticker on this particular test boat, on a trailer is just over $30k. About the price of a mini-van.
