Bayboat Spinoff - Tidewater 25 or Sportsman 247

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Tidewater 2500 Carolina Bay

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I just sold my tidewater 2500 carolina bay and honestly I hated it. Poor quality assembly everywhere, inside hatches where deck meets the boxes was unsanded rough fiberglass that wasn't sealed and would cut you when you tried to clean under there. Had about 10 gelcoat chips throughout the inside of the boat, all just from the boat bouncing. These spots, the gelcoat was paper thin and had a small void before getting to fiberglass so no support behind it. You could see the front casting platform flex when someone walked on it. If you need to work in the bilge area, you better hope your 3 year old is good with a wrench because no adult is getting in there. If you have rods in the leaning post holders, there is no room to walk around behind it. None of the boxes would hold ice for more than a few hours so you had to use coolers for drinks and fish, but there isn't any room for coolers so they are on deck, in the way.

I can't speak for the other options but I wouldn't own a tidewater again if they gave it to me for free.

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This is one of the comments I just pulled from The Hull Truth. There is plenty more if you spend a little time searching.

I don’t care either way. Just sharing what I have found online.

I guess by that logic everything posted on here by you and I must be bullshite and marketing as well eh?

I certainly would say take it with a grain of salt and no one should ever make such a large financial decision purely off of what can be found on message boards. I would not completely ignore the postings.

Now back to these two boats. The tidewater is definitely the bigger of the two as it is wider and longer.

The front deck layouts are different. They both have the optionally bow seating packages. Looks like the Tidewater has a stepped front deck to accommodate the seating package and flush edges. The Sportsman looks like its deck is the same height and has a raised edge toe kick.

Have you crawled over them to compare access to the bilge areas and pumps to see how easy or hard it will be to complete repairs and maintenance. This is a big one for me when I buy my next rig.

How do they compare on price?

Maybe make a list of the pros and cons of each.

Just looked at that one online. While a great boat, it’s priced way higher than the two he’s looking at. $115-120k.

Access on sportsman is a 10/10, ride is good, build quality 9/10, resell 10/10.
Have only walked on one tidewater, layout looked very good but that is all i got.

One more thing I’ll add, I needed a boat that’s fish a family of 5. The casting deck on the TW is the largest in its class and by a decent margins. The 22’ Skeeter I had coveted looked down right small.

The ride is very good and very dry due to the Carolina flare.