I've ridden in a 2002 38 Lightning with 575's...not for sale, just a good neighbor taking me out. Going to look at a 95 35 Lightning with 502 MPI's, 480 hours. Other than the obvious length difference, wanted to know overall how the ride compares to the 38 and say a 33 Outlaw? Whatever I get will be for use at LOTO exclusively.

Scott, your going to want as long as possible for our lake!

How about a ride in a 42 with 2,400 hp?

Ha! How can I pass that up!! I jokingly thought your 42 with triples would be the perfect off shore learners boat...I could start with just running ONE engine, then work my way up! I'm available for any other marketing solutions you're after!

They are both great boats but having owned both I would have to say that the 38 rides much better than the 35 while still retaining most of the nimbleness of the 35. I am also on a lake that varies between dead calm and major nasty slop when busy and the 38 could handle almost anything "at speed" that Lake Cumberland could throw at it - the 35 could handle it if I slowed down but who wants to do that.

I still run some tab on my 38 at LOTO. It does well but I do have to back out of the throttles. If you can just buy the 42 and you won't look back.

Thanks for the input. This level of boating is all new to me...performance, tab adjustment, etc. My Monterey 298ss has small tabs that nest in the rear of the hull. But it behaves much like every other boat I've owned and it will pretty much do everything you need with drive trim. I do use the tabs for correcting an imbalance in load, but rarely need it to keep the nose down. The 38 I rode in seemed to require a lot of fiddling with tabs and seemed to list or walk a bit more than other boats I've ridden in. Not sure if that was the way it was adjusted? But i did NOT like that feeling of hitting a wave from the side and having the boat tip hard like that. Combined with the lower gunwale height it was a little creepy. But it was on and off rough, leaning toward smoother and we were running faster, so it may have been trimmed more for speed.

I came up on a wall of water about 9 feet tall in San Diego bay the other day. It looked like a wall of glass. I was going about 60 and I figured I was either going to go through it or over it. Either way I was not scared w my 38