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Sea Ray 390 Sundancer
By Michael Verdon — Spring
2004
I’ve always thought of Sea Ray Sundancers as the Toyotas of the cruising world—nice, dependable, and well-built, but not up to Lexus level in terms of amenities. That opinion definitely changed with my three-day trip aboard a 390 Sundancer. It’s a cruiser’s cruiser, with a generous cockpit and spacious saloon, a large head, and three sleeping areas. Though two of the four men on our boat stayed overnight in hotels, all of us were aboard during daylight without feeling squished.
Our 19,000-Btu, zone-controlled air conditioner kept the cabin cool, even when the thermometer outside topped 90 degrees. The full-size berth with innerspring mattress in the forward stateroom was comfortable and private (the 13-inch TV/DVD combo unit was also nice if I didn’t want to watch the 20-inch screen in the saloon). The full-featured galley survived the real test: the fridge was big enough to keep us all fed.
The feature from Sea Ray
Boats (800-SRBOATS, www.searay.com)
that I liked most was the optional Sea Ray Navigator, a PC-based chartplotter
with a 10.4-inch LCD screen. Every now and then it’d fade out under
the sun, so we’d have to use real charts, but for the most part
we touched the screen to move the chart. At first, I wrote it off as an
unnecessary gizmo, but I was soon hooked. I followed our progress downriver,
especially during the twists and turns where (despite the markers and
charts) I managed to put the boat into backwaters. That’s where
the feature’s depthsounder and radar came in most handy.
The Sea Ray Navigator adds $16,333 to the 390’s base price of $374,754 with twin 370-hp, 8.1-liter MerCruiser gasoline inboards.
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