Cobaltchat.com

This winter or next spring I will be in the market for my first boat. I have rented boats several times at LOTO every time it has been a 27' tritoon. I do plan on boating at Lake of the Ozarks once or twice a summer but mostly around central IL smaller much calmer lakes. My parents have a condo and a slip at LOTO but no boat... Sometimes I think I should just buy a tritoon and leave it at LOTO, but with a 19month old daughter and a wife that works full time as well as myself it is hard to get down there as much as we would like. So local boating might make more sense.

With the plans of mainly local boating and 1 or two trips to the Ozarks I'm thinking a nice bowrider would be better for our little family. No dealers are close to me otherwise I would just go look at a new R6 to get a feel for the size.

My questions are if a R5 is really much bigger than any older 23'-24' boat without a large swim platform? Yesterday we went out with a family friend on his older Rinker 232 bowrider. He had 9 adults on board and even with 6 I think it would feel too small. Is a R5 bigger or is it about the same size with just a bigger and better swim platform?

If I'm buying a boat for local the models that interest me and Cobalt R5, Cobalt R7, Regal LS6, Regal LS4, Regal 2500, Regal 2700, Formula 270. The larger of these might make a decent LOTO boat - but it is easy to rent a tritoon down there so maybe if I have a smaller boat for around home use I would just keep it at home and rent one when down there.

Basically what I'm asking is an R5 much bigger seating and storage wise compared to the old rinker 232 Captiva br I was just on?

Used R5s seem to be in my budget and I am hoping people are willing to deal if buying in the winter months?

Thanks for any comments or info.

.
So glad you found us ICF....

My choice is the bigger R7 (or R8) for LOTO. You never wish for smaller on the water.

Formula for Saltwater environments and big blue water.

Others will chime in shortly.

Be sure to keep us posted.

And welcome aboard mate!
.

Coming from a 27' tritoon I'm afraid pretty much everything will feel small to you. I'd go as big as you can. I love the layout of the r5/7 I think the R5 would feel bigger than the 232 but will still be pretty small compared to the tri-toon. Those things are like having your living room on the lake.

I would definitely prefer a R7 over and R5 but I think I want to cap my budget at 100K. I really don't want to finance a toy and that is about as much as I could swing without financing. Really would love to keep it around 70K. The R series appeals to me because it seems much more updated than the older 262 Cobalt for example. Plus I think the hull rides great from what I have read. I just wonder if a R5 is big enough to make me happy. I need to find one to see in person. The 232 was simply too small for my liking. One size bigger would probably be okay but like I said with the swimstep being counted as length I really don't know if it would feel much bigger.

R5 feels bigger inside than a lot of other 25' boats due to a design principle they call "free space reclamation" - this short video gives a brief explanation

Just finished up several days at LOTO. At one point we had full capacity of 14. In small chop never felt overloaded. On Saturday it would have been more hairy with a full load. Make Party Cover Again was happening on Saturday and I happened to be coming around the corner around dinner time. We had 10 aboard - these were the biggest waves I had been in but no worries with a lighter load. Love the R5 with the 380 VP.

Stay with Cobalt over Regal. I don't know the others.

Since you have more regals than cobalts listed: Simple fact, Cobalt is corporate-owned, Regal is still a 54 year-old sole owner family boat company. You don't stay in business for that long against corporate-owned companies unless you are doing something right.

In my case Regal doesn't have a dealer on the lake; so Cobalt with a lake dealer was the way to go. 1st year shakedown cruises with warranty repairs and maintenance in the out years means you should not only buy the boat, you should pick your dealer as carefully as you pick your boat.

Here is an overview of the LS4 and Cobalt R4:
https://www.mby.com/features/best-runab ... 5ft-125873

I personally liked the features and quality of the R series over the LS4. In our part of the country, there are a lot more Cobalts than Regals. I drove several times to the east to look at used Regals. In most cases, either they weren't taken care of as well as the Cobalt owners took care of their boats, or they just didn't age was well.

The other main reason we went Cobalt is we have a quality local Colbalt dealer as Sumgai recommended. Plus, at my age, I like the side walk thru so I can hold the arch for stability when waves are hitting us.

Cobalt was a family business until 2017, so any R5 you're looking at may well meet this criteria if it's something that matters at all to you.