Home Forums Fishing Saltwater Tell me about West Coast Saltwater boats.

I have a Hewescraft ProV with the extended transom.
Its my second one, bigger then the first. Nothing wrong with the first one.

It's darn confidence inspiring to be sure. Much louder hitting waves then fiberglass, but then I can beach it in the sandy shore which I cannot with a fiberglass boat.

Hewescraft have kind of become the standard where there are better ( more expensive) and lower price and quality out there. Northwest Jet boats or Duckworth might be the higher end of similar design. However they are usually 30-50% more and also usually require more HP for the same length due to the additional heavier weight aluminum. I'm getting 6 MPG with a Yamaha 115hp that can get me to upper 30's mph at 4500 RPM

I'm not sure I want the heavier boat which require a 150HP and drops my MPG even lower for the same speed.

My Hewescraft is a perfect boat for me. I would buy it again if something happened to this one. High quality, well laid out and engineered, everything worked without a single warranty claim twice now.

There are things that in my opinion should have been factory available that I installed or modified afterward, but that is often a personal choice too.

One other thought. If you cruise around rough waves now and then, attention to the hull design is critical. Some of these higher end welded Aluminum boats are very river design heavy which means a more flat bottom. In the salt a V is far preferable.

My first Hewescraft was the Sportsman which is a lake and river shallow V

This New one the ProV is a hybrid of sorts. The ability in the ocean to deal with the wake of other boats and the rough water is night and day better. would not change a thing as far as this goes. We woke up in the shallows of the columbia river one morning after sleeping on the boat. The Prop was in the mud. They adjusted the water height over night with the Dam.

I lifted the motor and went over board standing next the the boat it was less then Mid Shin deep! I was able to push the floating boat to deeper water. I Was quite impressed that this big heavy boat could float in 10-12" of water with my family and the gear in side!