dave krehbiel

I love both Fountain and Formula, I would have bought a Fountain for my last boat except I had to make the family happy also with air and a frig in the cabin. I don't know why Fountain dos'nt do that. BTW I bought from Shogrens out of Chicago, great people to work with. Top notch Fountain dealer.

blownincome

Mine (35ts) Has A Fridge And Flush Head

convincor253

Hey Mike,

Good luck with the insurance company. I have a 1998 32 Fountain Fever for sale. Give me a private PM and I will give you the details if you are interested. Fountains rule!

Dan

RaggedEdge

I'm on my second 35 Fountain, the first was a '99 single step with 500's and now an '06 twin step with 525's. Over the years I have been fortunate to have been able to run a real wide range of performance boats and I honestly feel that in terms of hull design, speed, and handling it's hard to beat what Fountain offers. I spent a lot of years watching these boats and wanting one, having owned two now I would definetly buy a third. Both that I have owned were well done and well rigged. Some out there will make an issue of the way Fountain designs his boats and in some ways they are overly simplistic, but they are designed to be run, and run hard.

As far as some of the options such as shore power, A/C Heat, fridge, gennie, etc, they have always been an option if you want it, most just don't. My boat now has a fridge and a vacu-flush toilet with a holding tank, I believe it's standard now, but we never use them, if they were not there it would make no difference to me at all. Some want thes things and they are available as on any other brand.

blownincome

Well said!

RaggedEdge

And we all know Fountains love to run hard!!!

deepv29

[QUOTE=Paisan;2846483]Hey OSO Brothers....

Quick background, then my question. I have a 33 Outlaw and long story short my insurance company has denied my claim after hitting a log in the Hudson River. It may come to a head soon and I'll be getting some money for my boat. Anyway, looking forward to replacing it and have been contemplating Formulas and Fountains and Sunsations. Curious what your take on them were. In terms of stability, reliability, etc. etc. I'd probably be looking at a 31-35 '98-00 so feedback on those years is more important.

Thanks in advance.

Contact Jim Wilkes of Wilkes Marine in Santa Ana, CA. He is currently an editor with PerformanceBoats.com / magazine. He is a former test driver for Hotboat. He knows the Sunsation intimately and can give you great information about them, or any boat. I do believe Sunsation is in his top 3 of favorite boats/companies. I would have purchased one but there arent many to choose from on the west coast.

Paisan

Thanks for all the great input guys, I really appreciate it. I've been without my boat for 1.5 years and it's killing me that my insurance basically screwed me over on what was due to me in terms of coverage. As I said I'll probabl be settling and getting a bit less than what I should have gotten but such is life.

I'm not too concerned about the motors and drives, cause as you guys point out the hull is the important part. Heck if I could find a boat with no power my motors are actually in good condition to swap over.

But as a followup, I'll be 95% day boating so a generator isn't a big concern, nor is the cabin space. Heck I'm mostly interested in cockpit space, stability (NY Harbor and the Hudson River are my playground and the wakes can be a PITA) and most importantly a hull that isn't going to go south on me, especially on a boat that is 10 years old and I hope to keep for at least another 10 years, since I'm not in a position to replace it as I was when I got into my 33 Outlaw.

Keep the comments coming and I will definitely be in touch with folks when/if I get a settlement from the stupid Insurance Company.

-mike

brian41

The problem with Fountain is you will need buy the 42 to find a comparable size boat such as freeboard or cockpit. Also they seam to want to sink at the docks.

Pat Ousborne

I owned a 22 Searay Pachanga for 7 years, a 272 Formula for 7 years and a Fountain 38 SC for 3+. My opinion is Fountain is the best quality but Formula closer behind than Searay. Fountain is always ahead on performance and they apply the cutting edge concepts to all models not just the few. If Formula had a 38 fastec with some headroom I'd have considered another Formula. That being said they were all great boats.