Lake Bound

imartin,
I really appreciate your post. We had a 2005 30 Outlaw with 496 ho’s. We decided to get something bigger for going to LOTO 3 to 5 times a year. We lived on a very small lake in southern WI. Everything we looked at. Donzi 38 ZR / 38 Top Gun for more speed also. The room in the cuddy was sooo disappointing. I’m your size 6’4” 250. I couldn’t fit worth a darn. Even my wife a 5’4” said we would be going backwards. That’s why we purchased a 2014 Active Thunder Evolution. Great headroom heat and air when on shore power. The Mercury 565s didn’t disappoint my decision also. For the price point if feel the 30 & 35 Baja’s are great options. I didn’t have any liner issues.

imartin

I too had a 2005 30 OL with HOs, was a fun boat. You didnt buy my old one did you lol. I sold mine through GSC in Chicago. White with black, yellow, purple graphics. The crosshairs type graphics. Picked up my 35 off Lake Michigan back in 2014 from a private seller who bought new from GSC, that's why I did the whole deal with GSC.....

Plowtownmissile

Former Baja owner here also and they were great boats for me. My father had a buddy that we hung out with that bought new Bajas every few years so that's why I went searching for them when it was time to hang up my drag/street racing hat when my kids were born. I'd bet Bajas got a lot of young guys started in performance boats over the years.

First one was an almost new 2006 20 Outlaw with the 5.0 MPI. Paid $16k for it with about 10hrs on it. Ran 58ish with a 21p M+ prop and 63ish with a 23p LaserII prop. With a 21 degree deadrise and a pad bottom, it was an absolute blast. Wish I'd kept it just for a fun lake/river boat.
Second one was a 2002 292 Islander with a 496H0/B1X. Ran 50mph with a 22p B1 prop but it rode nice for being fairly light, the family was happier with it, and it had a cabin for kids to get out of the sun. Spent many days cruising LOTO at 30-35mph from my place at the 21MM. Put a big W&W stereo system in it for when it was a no kids weekend at the lake. It wasn't fast but it was fun and very convenient with the big block rumble.

Nowadays with two teenagers, I've got a 2010 Dominator SSR in the garage that we trailer to local lakes and poker runs. If/when the time comes that the kids get tired of the "cool boat", I'll be replacing it with a new Manitou 25LX with twin 300 Verados for family stuff and a new 23 Trick with twin 300 ProXS for fun days on the lakes/river.

regalman4925

My dislike for them purely goes down to bad build quality. I currently have a 1996 baja sitting in my driveway, it needed a transom done when I got it and have owned a handful of them over the year. They have great layouts and looks. They did a absolutely horrible job on build quality, transoms and stringers particularly. I have never owned one that did not need wood replaced. And before everyone comes out and says all boats have rot issues, sure they absolutely can. But I have owned and been around allot of boats and baja is the only one that I have seen that used construction adhesive between sheets of wood in the transom and are among the few I have heard of that used dimensional lumber for stringers. You heard that right, go to lowes and buy a 2x12, that is what most of their stringers were. If you do not understand why that is bad, I suggest doing some research on building boats. Easy experiment, take a piece of marine grade plywood and a 2x12 and throw it outside for awhile, pay attention to what happens when they are exposed to water. The result is the 2x12 will curl and begin to rot, water also travels right through it. glass will not stay stuck to a 2xX that curls. To make matters worse, baja did not seal any of the holes in areas like where the fuel line goes through the stringers or the drains in the engine compartment stringers. It takes 1 mishap before you have a bilge full of water 1 time and those stringers are wet. If you have never had water in your bilge, you likely have not been boating long or I guess maybe you are perfect and lucky. One hose coming off, 1 time forgetting a drainplug, heavy rain storm.... Your bilge can't keep up with most of those instances. I don't hate them, I just hate how they were built and would be leery and extremely cautious buying one.

bajaholic

Just to be fair, you have a 30 year old boat. I am curious how much you know about the past owners and how they took care of it? I am sure EVERY manufacturer in the production power boat manufacturing line(s) has had stringer issues if they were stored outside the majority of their life. Not defending anything, but just expressing being realistic on what you have is important.

regalman4925

Show me another manufacturer that used dimensional lumber for stringers... or construction adhesive between layers on the transom with non marine grade plywood. the first one I encountered was a 98 25 outlaw that had a absolutely gone transom and rotted stringers around 2007. So that wasn't even 10 years old at the time. That boat was also a pampered garage kept boat that looked brand new in every way possible. Yet, rotted bad. You could poke a screw driver right through the transom and hit glass on the back side. My friend group has had at least 6 or 7 25 outlaws over the years including one currently getting done, one done last summer, every one we have had was rotted badly. The good thing is the resale on bajas is high, so guys like us repairing them means making cash off of them. I own 2 1988 chris crafts as my personal boats, both have original solid transoms and never had a rot repair done on them.

bencini231

I've saw more fountain rotted out, than I have Baja's over the years. I've owned many and never had an issue, as well as many friends. You do your homework first before buying and remember if its cheap then there is a reason for it. Also many people removed the factory exhaust tips or swim platform, then they never poperly sealed those ares back when reinstalling. This has caused more issues than most think about.

regalman4925

You can research all your want, im giving real world experience here. Believe what you want. The 98 baja I mentioned above was a very low hour 100% original boat. Literally nothing had been changed on that boat. When you tear a transom out and find construction adhesive and staples in your transom, you know it is a quality issue. Just because you and your friends have not found rot, doesn't mean it isn't there. Let's do a experiment, go out to your baja, climb into the bilge and find the drains in the stringers, stick your finger in there and feel around. Let me know what your result is.

Twin O/B Sonic

As someone who has replaced more rotted transom and stringers than I care to remember, I will add to the thread.

95% of rotted floors are due to previous owners replacing seats etc, w/o properly sealing new mounting holes and old ones.

Not the mfgs fault.

On rotted OB transoms, 95% of the time it’s from previous owners replacing motors in similar fashion to the seats.

Not the mfgs (or the woods) fault.

On stringers, especially in IOs and inboards, they rot at motor mounts/bolts.

If the motors are orig, it’s the mfgs fault.

Had a bro in-law buying a 10 yr old, 39’ Searay and was paying cash so didn’t need a survey.

I talked him into one.

All 4 stringers were rotted at motor bolts!
It was a $6k repair (paid buy seller), 30 yrs ago!

The above poster is correct on unfinished stringer drain/scupper holes as well.

Had a friend, yrs ago, looking to order a new Egg Harbor cruiser. Really wanted one.

He toured the factory and caught that they did not seal those holes.

He passed accordingly.

Yrs ago I replaced stringers in a mid ‘80’s 24’ Wellcraft Nova.

It was the 4th time it had been done!!

1st time would be on mfg, 2nd/3rd would be on shop that did them.

It was a great example of additional effort required to do it right.

Four stringers but a bazillion bulkheads tying them all together in a grid system.
Great way to build a race boat.

On a production boat, to make that structure drain and seal all the scupper holes, yikes!

Boat would be so expensive, Wellcraft would have sold zero of them.

Bellow floor is always the worst I see.

Mfg installs the floor, everything is hidden (so you only see the pretty interior and 19 speakers!) and an absolute turd will still make it through warranty.

As far as dimensional lumber, that is bottom of the barrel and may not make it through warranty!

Same on construction adhesive.

I redid a Supra ski boat that had 2 x 4 stringers, assembled with 16 penny framing nails!
And it looked orig!

Buyer beware, especially on used!

On my ‘86 25’ Checkmate that I just rerigged and powered, I kept core samples of everything, for use at resale.

Transom, stringers, floor and deck!

At 38 yrs old, All rock solid.

The way I see it, any half ass crew can lay up a nice/solid deck and hull, assuming a proper laminate package and good molds.

It’s what happens next that determines the final package and it’s life cycle.

And yeah, the stories of the Fountains appear similar.

If you’re a project guy……, I’d have no issue buying one and going to town.

I looked at several Bajas for IO to OB conversions.

Bill Glueck

My first offshore “performance” boat was a 1990 226 ES. Single 454 with a bravo. I was very young and had zero chance of buying anything better. First loan I ever took out in my life was to buy that boat. I loved it. I knew nothing about performance boating. Hell I still know nothing about performance boating, but I beat that boat unmercifully and it never broke down. I learned a lot while running that boat. The guy I sold it to continued to enjoy it for years as far as I know.
my second performance boat was a 1995 32 caliber. Had four standup bolsters powered by a pair of chief 600s on bravos. Boat ran 86 on GPS, which was pretty fast for the time. I think I bought that boat in 1997 or 98. Just like my first one I beat that boat like I hated it. It ran in rough water level and turned very nicely. Overall, an incredible boat for the money. When I bought it, it had one engine blown up. I think I paid 30 grand for it. That’s the one I would like to have back. I still look on the Internet occasionally searching for it. I loved that boat. I made money on both of those boats even after I used them for years. The thing about entry-level cars and boats is by nature the cheaper price tag does bring all types of people into the market. And a lot of them cannot afford to keep up with the equipment. Which allows for really good deals on these things when they develop problems which allowed a young person, such as myself to experience the fun of offshore boating.
The point to my rambling is are there better built boats out there? Opinions vary but I am sure there are. Are there Bajas out there with rotten wood? Of course there are. However, for some people that is their only option. And it can help people get out there boating and having fun. Did I want a fountain outer limits cigarette, etc.? of course I did. Did owners of those boats usually look down on me at poker runs? Most of them did although I did enjoy dusting a few of them with my junk. I never noticed any horrible build issues or even stress cracks with either boat and I can assure you that if there was any rotten parts of that 32 I would have definitely found them as hard as I ran. Don’t judge anyone on the brand of their boat the cheaper stuff can be just as fun and the people running them just might be good people.