Quote:
Originally Posted by Hillcountry
Got an impromptu chance to try a tritoon today...it was a Berkshire 23 with a 150 merc fro Irwin. It was our first time on a tritoon or any pontoon for that matter.
Seemed like a nice boat and was visually, pleasing.
They fork lifted it into the water and the salesman took us out into paugus Bay.
First impressions were it was very quiet and smooth and as we got past the NWZ the salesguy opened it up a bit. I have to say the area was literally, inundated with boats of every kind going seemingly every which way, causing quite a chop. He slowed down and offered me the helm whereupon I throttled up to a slow cruising speed (didn't think to look at the tach or speedo) but we were probably doing 10 mph. Heading towards the channel he said "we don't go past that little island over there" so i made a sweeping turn back in the southerly direction.
The chop was getting quite heavy and I decided to test the toon by throttling up a bit but not full throttle. A huge wake appeared in front of me and as I approached it at a diagonal headway. As we hit the wake waves the boat rose up and slammed down a few times (didn't expect this from a tritoon)
I guess that's called porpoising? I guess I expected the toon to cut through without slamming. It was probably my fault for not operating correctly as I was somewhat timid with it and unfamiliar with the trim and whatnot.
I headed back to the docks and handed the helm back to the salesguy thinking about what we had just experienced.
No doubt it was a nice platform and VERY different from our 19 ft bowrider.
Bottom line was the salesguy wanted to know our thoughts and we went inside to see what kind of deal was possible but that ended quite soon when Mr Irwin (in another room) said that all they could do on this boat was about $250 off of the $45k price tag. we looked at a bottom line Premier (Palm Beach) and weren't too impressed by that.
We have another demo on Wed. morning to try a Sweetwater at Meredith.
Quite a process ahead of us!
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I have never bought from Irwins because I have always found them to be extremely pricey on anything they have. Almost a certain level of arrogance in that they are the 800lb gorilla on the lake.
Back in June we stopped at Irwins in Alton to look at their Premiers. While there, my wife took a fancy in the Monterey 328SS they have (we have owned 2 of these in the past). The sales rep was extremely arrogant and didn't know half as much as he thought. He quoted us $248k, which was basically full blown msrp...Nobody sells boats for full msrp...After I questioned him on it he came out with the witty comment that "the boat has Axius and that alone is a $100k option." Seriously dude? Better check your facts. That boat will be sitting for a long time. Its a shame Shep's lost the line. Good people!
We ended up going to Channel and Winnisquam, were treated great by both but ended up spending our money at Winnisquam as always.
If you are looking at Berkshires for $45k I would look at what you can get in a Benny for the same price. Better boat, better dealer.
I agree with another posters comment about getting a lot more for your money out of state. I have bought many boats out of New England for that reason. There is no reason for a $16k difference on price to go from a 150hp to a 250hp. If it is a 4 stroke Merc to a Verado there is a LOT of re-rigging to be done, but not $16k (maybe $8-10k with the difference in the motor price plus rerig).