New 2005 50' Sea Ray

What a splendid day.

I got a chance to see a very interesting new boat. By lucky coincidence,
(certainly not at Sea Ray's request), I'll be one of the first boating writers
to review the 2005 Sea Ray 500. I got to take hull #2 out for a run today, and
the boat is so new
that the electronics were still being installed. We had to do timed runs on a
measured mile to calculate speed, (GPS not commissioned yet).

This boat is sensational. They obviously just told the deisgner to throw away
the rule book. Sometimes that results in a really screwed up boat, but the 500
is spectacular. It looks impressive, and runs flawlessly. I forgot to check to
see if the boat even comes with trim tabs, it stayed almost dead level while
achieving a quick plane.

There are a lot of builders still turning out the last boats of the 20th
Century. The new Sea Ray will probably be considered among the very first truly
21st Century boats.

Lots of impressive stuff. (Should be, at $1.15mm). I'm really glad the price of
this boat is up in the seven-figure category. That's so far beyond my practical
reach that I won't even bother ruminating about the financial adjustments (read
"miracle")
it would take to afford such a craft.

The boat is so new that I'm told it isn't even on the Sea Ray website yet.
I shot two rolls of film and took copious notes on my recorder. Unfortunately,
my recorder went swimming as we were coming in for a landing, but just the act
of speaking the information into the recorder coupled with the photos will
allow me to reconstruct the notes.

Anybody who would like a "sneak peek" at the new 50-foot Sea Ray, send me an
e-mail and I'll shoot you a zip file of photos.

I may even strap on the asbestos underware and spam the NG with my fully
developed observations and opinions when the rough draft is done.