Center console boats over 40 feet have become the hot trend in recent years. In this blog post, I’ll decipher all the noise to come up with the top five boats in my opinion. The info is based upon my personal experience at the Ft. Lauderdale Int’l Boat Show as well as additional communications directly with the respective manufacturers.
ARE CENTER CONSOLE BOATS OVER 40 FEET WORTH IT?
THE BOATS
Below is a list of all the boats I reviewed. These boats made the list because they met the following criteria; high-quality build, builder reputation, popularity, functionality and design aesthetics. The boats listed in bold are the boats I used for my comparison. The boats not listed in bold were not included in the final results because I never was able to get performance figures from them when I reached out. However, they are still on my initial list because I think they’re worthy. Finally, you can click on each boat to be re-directed to their respective webpages for specific info.
CRUISING CAPABILITY
It was important that the top contenders had nice amenities down below. With price tags around $1 million I would expect it. The boats with the nicest cabins were the Grady White, Jupiter, Everglades, Boston Whaler and Pursuit.
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PERFORMANCE & SPECS
The boats reviewed had varying performance numbers. The best boats for cruising efficiency and range were the Invincible, Valhalla, Scout and Intrepid. The best boats for top speed were the Invincible, Valhalla, Intrepid and Contender. Keep in mind that most of the boats could go even faster with larger power packages and some boats even had unlimited horsepower (i.e. HCB).
Average Price: $940,733
Average Horsepower: 1700
Average Cruising Speed: 35 mph
Average Top Speed: 63 mph
Average MPG at Cruise: .83
Average Range: 406 miles
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THE VERDICT
Based upon all the information I’ve gathered, here are the top five boats over 40 feet;
#5 Jupiter 43 (Beautiful looks, fantastic cabin, high-quality fit & finish, good performance)
#4 Pursuit S405 (Modern design, nice cabin, solid performance & price)
#3 Scout 42 (Luxurious, most family-friendly, great quality, lots of amenities)
#2 Valhalla 41 (Best quality, iconic Viking reputation, almost identical to Invincible but more expensive)
#1 Invincible 42 (Best performance, best price)
At the end of the day, my top boat boat over 40 feet was a toss-up between the Valhalla and the Invincible. The reason I picked the Invincible is because it was almost identical to the Valhalla but was approximately $150,000 less expensive. That being said, the quality of the Valhalla and legendary corporate backing is second to none. Also, despite not having performance numbers for inclusion, I feel the Yellowfin 42, the Blackwater 43 and Intrepid 407 Panacea are excellent choices.
