Site Menu — Find Your Page
Bowrider Boats Mega Website
Start Here
Popularity in boats is usually a proxy for one thing: how many days a year the boat actually gets used. Bowriders top the sales charts because they remove the excuses.
Bowriders outsell every other trailerable boat type. Here is the honest breakdown of why buyers keep choosing them, and where the popularity is deserved.
Buyers rarely want a single-purpose boat. They want to take the kids out, tow a tube, throw a line in occasionally and anchor somewhere pretty for lunch. A bowrider covers all of it competently.
Specialist boats create friction. If your boat only fishes, the family stops coming. If it only cruises, you stop fishing. Bowriders keep everyone interested.
Because bowriders are built in enormous volumes by brands like Bayliner, Sea Ray, Chaparral, Quintrex and Quicksilver, the used market is deep. Deep markets mean fair prices, easy comparisons and available parts.
You can buy a serviceable used bowrider for the price of a second-hand car, and you can sell it again without waiting six months for a buyer.
A bowrider is a sociable shape. Everyone faces inward, conversation works, and the bow lounges put two people in the best seats on the boat rather than staring at the back of a cabin.
Add a good stereo, a chiller box full of drinks and a swim platform, and the boat becomes the destination rather than the transport.
The bowriders that come up most often when readers ask us where to start.
The world's best selling bowrider size, Light, simple and easy to tow.
US$38,000 - US$52,000 new
The refined mainstream benchmark: quiet, dry, and beautifully finished for the money.
US$72,000 - US$95,000 new
15.5 ft fibreglass Bayliner bowrider with stern drive power — entry level pricing and a classic convertible bowrider layout.
US$26,000 - US$34,000 new
Featured Boat of the Week
This week we are putting the Bayliner Bayliner DX2000 in the spotlight, and it earns the spot. At 20 ft 2 in (6.16 m) long on a 8 ft (2.44 m) beam, this is a bowrider that reads the water well and still feels roomy enough for a full day out. A 20-foot deck-boat-width bowrider with outboard power and a huge social cockpit. Power comes from 115-150 hp mercury fourstroke outboard through a outboard package, and the fibreglass hull keeps the ride settled when the afternoon breeze puts a chop on the surface.
Seating is rated for 8 people, so there is space for family, friends, towels, eskies and the tow rope without anyone climbing over gear. Owners tend to buy it for family, water ski, leisure — which is exactly where it shines. Fuel is 30 us gal (114 l), and on the second-hand and new market you should expect to land somewhere around US$42,000 - US$58,000 new depending on hours, trailer and options.
Our full deep dive covers the layout in detail: bow lounge comfort, helm ergonomics, the rear entertaining area, storage that actually swallows a weekend, plus standard features, popular options and honest notes on where the boat compromises. If the Bayliner DX2000 is on your shortlist, start there — and check back next week, because the featured boat changes every week as we complete more full model reviews.
Featured Bowrider Article
On the Water
Bowriders are designed for protected water, but plenty of owners run them along the coast, out to islands and offshore to fish. It can be done safely with the right boat, the right conditions and the right discipline — and it goes badly wrong when any one of those is missing. Size and deadrise come first. A 6.5-8.0 m hull with 19-22 degrees of transom deadrise handles offshore swell far better than a 5 m lake boat with a shallow V. Higher freeboard, a deep cockpit and self-draining decks matter just as much as length. The open bow is the weak point. Boats designed for coastal use offer a full bow cover or tonneau that closes the forward seating, preventing green water entering the boat. A bowrider without one should never be driven into head seas offshore, because a wave over the bow puts water straight into the hull. Twin outboards, a reliable bilge pump, a battery isolator and a proper anchoring setup all add real margin when you are hours from a ramp. Weather discipline is what keeps bowrider owners safe. A benign morning with under ten knots of wind and a low, long-period swell is very different from a fifteen-to-twenty-knot afternoon seabreeze with…
Read the full article