![]() ![]() Checkmates most performance orientated hull now is the 21 Pulsare. Checkmates have the family sport boat image down but founder Bill Combs was a racer for a long time and carried some unique hull designs into some of his popular boats like the early MX and V-Mate boats, and the later Starflite. Mark Weigel brings a wealth of racing experience to the table and it shows in the boats, he and his wife Dana raced and won in several classes, including a world championship in a triple engine Skater.įrom Bucyrus Ohio, the longtime boat builder has been a staple in the family sport boat category since the 60s. I have seen them in person and they are one of my favorite all around boats today. Not available as a bowrider, pure performance boats only, which I like. That is really quick and you can seat 5 people comfortably and add windscreens to make it a pretty good family boat as well. A light build 21 with a stock Evinrude 250 HO will go about 94 MPH. Generally, the Tuffs are faster than the original Challengers, due to those revisions and being lighter. Mark Weigel, the owner of Tuff, also changed the hull, adding a notch and widening the pad. Sleeker than the original, with a swept back faring and no bow cable. The 21 is a reworked George Linder designed, Challenger hull and has some notable features like Tuffs unique deck. Although rare to see in the wild in the United States, the boats are known to be built to a very high standard and have built custom lightweight carbon layup boats. Tuff is a custom builder so you can have it built to spec and have any colors you like. The small Canadian builder makes 4 hulls, the 16, 21, 24 and 28. The company was founded in 1955 by Paul Allison and is run by Darris Allison to this day. And despite popular belief, they can handle some rough water. After all these years, not much can touch a GrandSport flying around the lake. The radical styling differentiates them and actually has the passengers sitting deep in the cockpit for a very secure feeling. As a test, Allison once fitted the SS-2001 with a 90 Honda and it went 60 MPH. But, running with a stock 150 or 175 that weighs around 400 Lbs is ideal, making for a super efficient and a fun family hot rod. Any boat running that far out of the water at those speeds has inherent risks. Like any ultra light boat, you have to know how to drive it. The small Allisons are designed to run lighter engines, plenty have older Mercury Racing and other race engines that can push the hulls way over 100 MPH, easily. With a Grand Sport, you can run a stock 175 Pro XS and be in the high 80s (MPH). I believe Darris Allison once said he was concerned with making not the fastest boats but the most efficient boats. ![]() With a steep deadrise, pronounced notch and aggressive strakes, the GrandSport gets incredible lift. In racing, Allison is obviously well known and revolutionized the light, pad bottom design that has been emulated by many. They have had full composite construction for a very long time and they have bullet proof transoms, by integrating aluminum in them. Allison has been a pioneer in using high quality materials too. Probably the fastest production boats available in this category. Allison makes a slightly smaller boat, the SS-2001 SuperSport but the GrandSport offers a little more room and usability. The XS-2003 Allison GrandSport is the gold standard for small single engine family boats. Modern outboards on these small efficient hulls have many advantages they are low maintenance, less costly to buy, are very efficient and can be incredibly fast out of the box. I wanted to focus only on outboards here. Even though performance boats are not as plentiful as they were in the 70s and 80s, there are some incredible boats available today. In this article I want to look at V-hull outboard boats 22 feet and under that closely fit the profile I described above the small, do it all, family sport boat. ![]() Most people like something that can do it all, handle some chop, get some decent speed in a straight line while bringing the family along. This covers a large spectrum because some boats are semi offshore, some are lightweight lake hot rods and some are somewhere in the middle. At Wave to Wave, our favorite boats are smaller, single engine sport boats. ![]()
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