about 12 months ago, I posted almost the same question as the original poster (jpclarlie), except I was committed to twins and torn between 150's and 200's. I ended up getting a 2008 with T-150's, mainly for the following 3 reasons:
1. I felt that where I boat most often (Ches. Bay), I would not be able to take advantage of the extra power/speed of the T-200's
2. Twin 200's were an extra $9,000 ( as quoted by Norfolk Marine)
3. I was concerned about the extra weight of the 200s'
after owning our Gulfstream for a year, and putting about 90'hrs on the motors, here is my take on this issue.
1. 98% of the time, my twin 150's give me more power than I need. I will admit that out of the 90 hrs. on the motors, there were about 2 hours where I would hrs. where I would have liked to have gone 51 mph vs. my top end of 45 mph. These were the rare times when the water and winds were just right. But I will also admit that there was another 20% of the time, were I felt like I was running the 150's pretty hard crusing at 35 to 40 mph, where as with the twin 200's they would have been running pretty easy. But most of the time (80% or so), it would not matter what HP I had on the back, we could not have gone much faster without taking a reak beating.
2. the price given the overall boat price of about 95k really did not come into play that much given it would have only been another 10% increase in monthly payments. I was just concerned that I would have regreted not going for it.
3. Most of the time, we have 4 people on our boat (wife and two sons 16 and 17). With a full take of fuel, the motors do sit low in the water. I have noticed that coming off of a plane, that the overwash from the wake probably comes 2 or 4 inches over the seam in the motor cawling. I wish the motors set a bit higher, but I am glad they do not sit any lower, which is probably what they would do with t-200s'
I have been able to pull our two sons out of the water on a wake board with out much problem at all. Not that wake boarding is what we do much often, but the HP has not been a problem with a wake board. NOT sure how it would pull up a skier on one ski but for a wake boad it did OK.
I guess after a year, I do not regret the decision 98% of the time., but there is 2% of the time, I would like to break the 50 mph speed barrier. AS others have said, I am very pleased with the twins, while 300 hp is OK IMHO, I think a single 225 or 250 might be a bit underpowered.
oh... and I almost forget. while fishing near the fist island of the CBBT with my 16 yr old son, we ended up getting a braded fishing wire wrapped around one of the props while fishing for stipers and dodging other boats. The winds and tide was pushing us closer and closer to the rocks of the fist island, I was very happy to be able to fire up the other motor to get us away from the hazards of the rocks. Had we not had twins, I would have had to have taken a chance and just put the motor in drive and hoped for the best. With twins, we were able to get away from the rocks, grap a pole and untwist the line from the prop... with no damage.
All in all we are very much pleased with our Gulfstream and looking forward to getting the boys through college so we can upgrade to a larger GW in the future.
Ric, from Va
