HookedOnFishingBoats.com

You like a dry boat? Who doesn’t? But all boats will, in one condition or another, throw spray into your face. One rare exception to the rule: Sailfish’s 2860 CC. Now, I’m not saying you’ll never get wet on this boat. But I ran it in a frothy Eastern Bay that was churned up into three and four foot cliff-sharp choppy bay waves. We should have been soaked five minutes into the test. Yet we took spray over the bow only once, and that was when I tabbed the bow down and threw the wheel hard-over. Running against, with, and beam-to the seas the Sailfish shed water out and away from the boat while we stayed amazingly, surprisingly, pleasantly dry. Perfectly dry? Of course not. Damn near? You bet.

The Sailfish PR dudes call this hull the “VDS5 multiple-plane” hull design. English translation: a variable-degree deadrise deep-V tapers to 24-degrees at the transom. Different sections of the hull have different angles as you move out from the keel, which also gives the boat a stability boost. In other words this is the same basic idea for bottom design that Sea Craft rode to fame decades ago. And, it’s a big part of the story behind the 2860’s ride. Yeah, I know: you’ve heard “smooth dry ride” so many times you want to rip your hair out, but in this case, the cliché is applicable.

Who cares if you’re dry, if you can’t slay the beast when you get to your fishing destination? No one, at least not the hard-core anglers who’d choose a center console like this, and Sailfish knows it. The standard boat comes equipped with a whopping 17 rod holders, including five vertical holders in the transom, a handy place for holders which most boat builders leave blank. Toe rails line the cockpit, and they have built-in downrigger ball holders. There’s a raw water washdown, a knife/pliers rack, and a four-step telescopic boarding ladder. The leaning post houses a couple of tackle boxes, a rigging station with a sink, and a 35-gallon livewell. In an incredibly smart move, Sailfish used magnetic catches in the tops of the hatches for the livewell and rigging station. When you open them they stay open—and there’s no strut to get in the way of your bait net or sink access. It works great, and this is a feature you’re sure to see copied on other boats.

Live baiters will like the 35-gallon livewell leaning post and the 30-gallon transom wells. When they catch their quarry it’ll be time to swing open the fishboxes—but the aft deck boxes only have 145 quarts of capacity. On the bright side, they are well insulated. There’s also a pair of 225-qt. boxes in the bowdeck, but experienced center console anglers know these usually get stuffed with gear. On this boat, you’ll need to keep at least one side open in case you land Bubba. What about food and drink? A 94-qt. cooler in the forward console seat can serve duty as a “clean” cooler.

Sailfish’s construction techniques are another high point. The structure of the boat is made up of foam-filled pre-formed Compsys fiberglass stringers (the same pre-fabs they use to construct the backbone in commercial lifeboats,) a urethane transom, carbon-fiber reinforced decks, and a hand-laminated hull. The big sections of the boat are bonded with Plexus, the same stuff they use to attach the heat-protective tiles to the space shuttle. Another indication of construction quality: check out those hatches. Cheap, easy to mold fiberglass hatches are heavy and unfinished on one side, but on this boat the hatches are light and finished on both sides because they’re RTM (resin transfer molding) molded. RTM is a closed-mold system in which the resin is injected under pressure into a two-piece mold already containing the fiberglass, ensuring an ideal resin-to-glass ratio for maximum strength with minimum weight. But there is room for improvement on these hatches. When I dropped the hatch to the stowage compartment in the foredeck (which has an inset in the bottom that holds a five-gallon bucket) it slammed shut with a bang. That’ll spook every fish within 50 yards of the boat. Adding gas-assist struts and/or a rubber gasket would take care of this problem.

How about performance? Our test boat carried 500 snorting YamArabian horses on the transom, the maximum power package available. Cruising at 4500 RPM the GPS held steady at 37.1-mph, while we sucked down a total 22.3 gallons per hour. That makes for 1.7 miles to the gallon, which is about average for a boat in this class running with twin 250-hp four-strokes. At wide-open throttle we hit 50.6-mph while burning 43.2 gallons per hour, just besting one mile to the gallon.

Now shut one engine down, tilt it up, and firewall the other—as we did during our test—and you’ll break 36-mph. That’s a get-home speed that should give you some serious piece of mind. Surprised the Sailfish is this speedy on a single screw? I was, too, even after breaking 50-mph at WOT. In fact, this boat could have gone faster. Were it not for the sea conditions, my guess is we’d have been able to tweak out the drives a bit more and hit 52- or 53-mph. Or, maybe my theory is all wet. On this boat, however, I seriously doubt it.

Sailfish's web site: www.sailfishboats.com.

LOA – 28’6”