Bayliner 195 Review

Here's a bit of a quiz for you: what do you get when you take a basic small craft hull tweak it a bit, add some soft, luxurious seating and then turn it lose on the waterways with more power?

If you are Bayliner, you get the 2012 195 BR, a bowrider that's based on the same basic hull as the 170-180 series, but with a big difference, the engineering teams have tweaked the hull and seating.

The result is a more comfortable 19-foot sterndrive motorboat that is equipped with a large stern swim platform that can also double as a casting platform if you want to fish. Or, ifyou want to entertain, you can set a small grille up on the sunning area to the rear of the rear bench seat or use the swim platform for a couple of small chair so you can sit back there and watch the sunset, ifyou're so inclined.

It's not likely that you will be inclined to do that once you see that the the captain's chair and the front cockpit passenger's seat swivel around so you can chat with your rear seat passengers and the rear bench seat is more an over stuffed double seat with a little less comfy seating in the middle so it's better suited to two than three.

In the bow section, accessible through a hinged section of the curved windscreen,you you have two large couch-style recliners that you can sit comfortably on as the boat power across a lake or harbor.

Capable of seating nine, the deep-Vee hull plane easily and runs for hours on the 33.2 usable gallons of gas in the tank. You should be able to cruise for at least an afternoon or longer, depdending on just how wide open you keep the the 4.3-liter or 5-liter four-stroke V-8 stern drive engines. You'll need full power if you are handling skiing or wakeboard chores. Wakeoboarding, a relatively new phenomenon, requires a special high-transom or tower to keep the rope from tangling while water skiing requires the small pylon.

In either case, this is when you will use maximum gas. Until then, you will probably find you can get along quite nicely about half throttle with the stern drive craft just planing on this $27,000 19-foot craft.

A suntop protection top is also availale and would make a breat addition if you are cruising or just sitting at anchor on a sunny day while your family and friends use the extended swimming platform on this

You'll find fuel use is close to about 3 gallons per hour in these engines so you have about 10 hours or cruising time at full throttle.

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