Is the AR220 a good first boat?

[jjcaiv]

I'm picking up an 2025 AR220 on Thursday and wanted to see if this was a good first boat? I could spend a little more on the 222s and get the bigger engines, but I think it might be overkill. I just want to take my daughter and wife in the bay with some friends at times. Cruise around, visit restaurants. Pull them in a tub and maybe do a little crabbing. Should I spend more and get the 222s? or stick to the AR220?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

If you download the app there is a comparison tool that you can use.

If it was me, I’d get the 222 S model with the 1.9L engines. The 1.9’s will almost double the horsepower, 222hp compared to 400hp, the 222 S looks like it is 239# heavier. In addition I think the 1.9’s would be quieter than the 1049 TR-1’s. The TR-1’s would probably get better fuel economy. That extra hp may seem like overkill, but when you have a boat full of people that extra power is nice to get it up on plane then you can pull the throttles back. If you’re going to have people on the boat and want to pull some tubers that extra power will be really nice. The TR-1’s are plenty perky at sea level.. but that 178 hp difference is a big deal, you can always not put the throttles so far forward..

Both boats look like they have snap in mats which will be nice for the crabbing you want to do, you can pull the mats out when going out crabbing so you don’t have to clean them, washing the deck down with a scrub brush and rinsing it all out the deck drain after a crabbing trip will make clean up easy.

There are a few other amenities that the S model has, like a MFD with charts if I read that correctly.

For roughly the same money you could get an AR250, a little bit bigger boat, but one thing you get with this boat is a port side storage compartment that is plenty big to use as a head compartment with a porta potty… if they have one of these on the lot I’d go an check it out. My boat has a small head compartment on it, and I have a small porta potty in there, after having that this last five years I would not own a boat without some sort of a small head compartment.

As many will say, buy your second boat first.