INDEPENDENT BOAT TEST RESULTS |
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| Hurrican SunDeck 217 A full-featured SUV from a deckboat master. |
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Oct. 99 by Lakeland Boating Test Team |
| D eckboats are the sports utility vehicles of watercraft.
They're wide and have shallow draft, yet perform better than a pontoon. Quick to plane, they're almost as sporty as a big runabout. You can pack deckboats with features for water skiing as well as for fishing. You can load up a cooler with food and beverages and (if it has a porti-potti) spend the whole weekend on the water. Or, you can hop aboard and take a slow-paced evening cruise. We recently took the first Hurricane SunDeck
217 to come off the line at Godfrey Marine's Elkhart, Indiana, plant
through its paces and are ready to deem it a
"good'un." Godfrey has been making deckboats since
the family-owned corperation bought Hurricane in 1974. To say
the company has some experience building decks is like saying Rush
Limbaugh has some experience being a conservative.
Our test boat still had the strong aroma of
fresh gelcoat, having recently been popped from a brand new
mold. Aside form one minor problem with the latch on the
porta-potti enclosure, it had a nice finished look and function we've found in other Godfrey Marine products. Powered by Yamah a 150 HP Saltwater Series II, it was quick, stable boat that was definitely built for having fun.
There were a lot of things to like about the
boat. Stepping aboard onto the front deck, the first thing I
noticed was the diamond-cut, non-skid pattern in the fiberglass and the small, low-profile docking lights. This front deck also has a swim ladder concealed completely flat. The ladder telescopes and swings down; an identical ladder is located on the rear swim paltform.
In the front of the bow, Godfrey installs an anchor locker with hard rubber clips to hold a Danforth anchor in place. Directly behind this, still in the raised bow area, is the livewell. This can also serve as a cooler in the boat isn't being used for fishing. As part of a fishing package, this livewell can pump in lake water. The fishing package (which our test boat did not have) also includes a single fishing chair and a trolling motor-another angling option- is installed in the rear port battery compartment. The area in from of the walk-through windshield could easily accommodate a halfdozen people on two wraparound sofas. In the middle of the bowrider floor area is a large compartment for skis, fishing rods or wakeboards. Plastic tubs with a drain hole under the seat cushions provide more storage. Grooves molded into the innerliner around the storage compartments help keep water from seeping in. The snap-in Berber carpet was an elegant touch and an option we'd certainly consider. Just aft of the walk-through wraparound windshield are the consoles, each of which has a compartment. The port-side compartment is designed to accommodate a porta-potti and does so with ample room. This compartment has a screened, tinted porthole as well as a light with an easily accessible switch. On the helm side is a small door barely large enough to slide a 25-quart cooler through. Godfrey should consider making this door a bit bigger to accommodate bigger coolers, as there is room left over in this compartment. Unless you pack towels or PFDs around the cooler, sudden turns could dump it on its side. 
The helm smacks of class, from its comfortable, adjustable helm seat >with a storage compartment in its base to its dash with attractive stainless steel bezels around the gauges, which Godfrey sets in a tasteful wood grain panel. Just about everything needed for anything to do with running this boat is on the console. Take the circuit breakers - they're right out in the open, yet unobtrusive with wood grain behind. The Sahara gauges are backlit and include everything hut an hour meter (tach, fuel, trim, speedo, volt). Our test boat also had an optional Hummingbird digital depth gauge. The cockpit sofa, which extends all the way up to the port console, eliminates the need for a passenger seat. The sofa wraps around the transom, ending just before the entrance from the rear swim platform. The section of this sofa along the port gunwale has a long storage compartment that Godfrey designed to hold the optional fishing chair with a ledge
that keeps seat pedestals from rolling around.
The hull is self-bailing. One drain is in the bowrider-area; the other, found in the cock- pit, moves water directly overboard (not just into the bilge). Flaps on the exit ports keep water from washing in. If you should take a wave over (or more likely leave the boat uncovered in the rain), an automatic bilge pump will click on and pump water out. Behind the helm is the galley, which consists primarily of a sink with storage underneath. A holding tank can carry up to 17 gallons of potable water. An interesting design quirk placed the battery compartment in the swim platform on the port side, opposite a ladder. Here, there was enough room to mount a couple more electric storage cells in case an angler wanted to use a more powerful 34-volt trolling motor to maneuver this heavy boat. Powered by the Yamaha 150-hp Saltwater Series II, this boat jumped on plane in just over two seconds, with no loss of vision over the front. From a dead stop, it accelerated to its top speed of nearly 43 mph in less than 14 seconds. It nailed its turns, and despite a moderate chop and some wind, not a drop of water came into the cockpit or even splashed the windshield. Hydraulic steering made the 217 simple to direct. Deckboats tend to slap when going through waves and wakes, but this one cut through them quite nicely.
Since this is a brand-new boat, Godfrey didn't have much time to play around with different props. Ours had a 19-pitch stainless steel prop. Judging from the fact we could rev it up to 5600 rpm, we thought a prop with more pitch might keep the engine with- in its maximum operating range of 5500 rpm. Since the boat got on plane immediately, we didn't feel that a larger pitch prop would take much off its hole shot, either. A steady, on-plane cruising speed was achieved at 3000 rpm, with the boat coasting along at 24.5 mph. Wakeboarders will love the peaked wake the 217 leaves in its path; with its quick on-plane capability, this boat could easily pull a pair (or more) of skiers when the vvakeboarders have had their fill. It looks like the Hurricane tradition of highly functional, well-made boats will con- continue with the SunDeck 217. Standard Equipment Includes: Options Include: Yamaha Saltwater Series II 150 HP Boat Specifications
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