DORAL 250SE
BUILT: 2003 PRICE: £47,500
A rare beast in that, although the styling has distinctly American overtones, Doral boats were actually made in Canada. Prevalent in the Nineties and Noughties, Doral actually dates back to 1979 and built a range of craft from speedboats up to 50-footers.
INTERIOR
The standout feature of this boat is the finish and the colour of the woodwork in the cabin, which looks both classy and inviting, and a huge step up from the very plain and austere looking interior of the boat we tested in 2000. The layout is entirely conventional for a boat of this size and type, with a dinette forward, a small galley opposite the heads and a double berth running transversely beneath the cockpit. There is standing headroom at the bottom of the steps, and although the shape of the boat means that you lose this further forward, the nature of the dinette is that you’d be sitting by this point anyway.
EXTERIOR
Almost all mid-20ft sportscruisers are constrained to an 8ft 6in beam in order to maintain the ability to be towed on the road but Doral has been particularly clever in how it ekes out the maximum amount of space. No side decks is an obvious win, access to the foredeck being granted via steps and an opening windscreen. More intriguingly, Doral has fitted a sliding section of cockpit seating, meaning that if you’re happy to lose a little bathing platform space, you can slide the aft portion out over it and drop in infill cushions. In fact, this example has the extended platform, reclaiming some lost ground.
PERFORMANCE
We tested a 250SE with a 260hp Mercruiser V8 petrol engine and achieved a very sporting 37 knots! Subtract the extra weight of the diesel engine (and the extended bathing platform), add a little back for the extra 40hp of the Mercruiser 300hp diesel and you should still be the right side of 30 knots.
SEAKEEPING
We found the handling of the 250SE to be ‘excellent’ apparently, with no heavy slamming. Like all tall narrow boats of this genre, it relies on the trim tabs to maintain an even keel in a crosswind.