Monday mornings don’t normally start off with someone phoning and begging you take an expense paid trip to Italy the next day, where on a gloriously Italian lake you are given the chance to muck around on one of Sea Ray’s newest boat – but hey, some Mondays are just better than others.
Pretending to be reluctant in my agreement, a quick orange plane ride later saw me strutting to the pontoon to see what it was I was here to test. Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it is certainly not what I had pictured – a striking paintjob on the hull of yet another twenty-something foot cabin sports boat. I furrowed my brow in an inquisitive manner and stepped aboard.

The American-Italian

Having tested plenty of this type of boat over the years, and perhaps becoming slightly jaded by the experience, all I can wonder is; what is it about this type of boat that is proving so popular? Sea Ray is part of the huge American Brunswick Corporation (the same chaps behind Bayliner, Quicksilver, Arvor and Sealine to name but a few), and like most American boat builders, they largely like to satisfy their domestic market first, much to the detriment of us European punters.

But Sea Ray has done something different. In the States, bowriders are much more popular than the smaller cabin boats, so Sea Ray has dropped the cabin boats from their line up, but rather than scrap them all together, they have moved their production of these boats to the cabin appreciative Europe. Having done this a few years ago, the time leading up to now has reportedly been spent tweaking and fine-tuning their existing range of small cabin boats more to the needs and wants of the most discerning market in the boating world - us. All hopeful and promising stuff, but will this latest generation 210 Overnighter live up to the hype?

Stars and stripes standard

If you’re after a reasonably well-rounded sports/day boat, the options these days are both vast and illustrious. The choice you make at the end of the day will be the result of making a compromise, whether that be speed, space, efficiency or budget.

But this Sea Ray is a truly great all rounder. Boldly striving into what is a very competitive market, it stands up well against its European rivals. Though the respected stables of Beneteau and Jeanneau (both proudly French) offer innovative and reasonably priced day cabin models of the same size, these particular models can, in my humble opinion, lack a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ (oh the irony). That may have to do with the fact that both aforementioned boats are outboard driven, whereas the American Sea Ray is inboard all the way.

The standard spec boat has a tasty 220hp 4.3 litre MerCruiser petrol sterndrive, and in my eyes that instantly equates to two major benefits: acoustics and looks…

For the full test of the Sea Ray 210 Overnighter, pick up the October issue of Sports Boat and RIB, out from the 15^th September.

Click here to buy the current issue.