You want to hit the pause button on life and get away for long weekends of boating anytime you please? You want to drop a line and catch a fish or two? You want to zip around the Bay with techy perks like Mercury VesselView and a nine-inch Simrad NSS EVO 3S at the helm? Of course you do—but in this day and age it can be challenging to find a boat that can do all this yet fits into a 30-foot slip and doesn’t cost more than your house. Enter: the Bayliner Trophy T29 Explorer.
The T29 is one of Bayliner’s new cabin cruiser boats, the others being the more compact T25 and T23 Explorers. These share a similar general design, with an open cockpit aft, a fully enclosed sedan-style cabin amidships, and a lower cabin with sleeping accommodations forward. The Explorers aren’t dedicated fishing boats like Bayliner’s other new cabin models, the T23 Pilothouse and T25 Pilothouse, but instead have more expansive cabins and are focused on cruising while still providing the basics needed to wet a line: that open cockpit plus a couple of fishing rod holders in the gunwales.
One of the most important features of a boat meant for full-on family weekending is private sleeping quarters for the adults and the kids, and in this the T29 Explorer comes through in spades. The forward stateroom with a pedestal berth and hanging locker is private, as one would expect, but the mid-cabin berth carved out under the helm deck also has a separate entrance with a closing door. Most boats in this size range have open mid-cabins and you won’t get nearly the same level of privacy aboard. And when friends join you for the trip, the dinette folds down into yet another berth.
Speaking of the dinette: it sits to port on the helm deck across from a galley unit with sink and optional refrigerator and stove. Up above there’s a slide-open sunroof, plus sliding side windows and a sliding door to the side-decks next to the helm. Letting in a cool sea breeze will never be a problem, if, that is, you don’t crank up the optional climate control. Note that you can get a 12-V air conditioning system on the T29 Explorer (heat is available, too), so dealing with all the extra cost and complexity of a generator isn’t necessary.
When you get to your weekend destination, there are plenty of spots to kick back and relax. The cockpit is shaded by the hard-top’s overhang plus a canvas sunshade and boasts L-shaped seating across the transom and along the port side. Or head for the bow, where you can stretch out on the cabin-top. As you walk up there, note that the recessed side-decks are ringed with tall rails, which makes going forward easy and safe.
Trends in boat design tend to follow society’s whims, and in recent decades we saw boats with cabins become fewer and farther between as busy families became more pressed for time and shifted from weekending to day-boating. Now, however, the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. More and more of us have decided we’ve had enough of the rat-race mentality, and we want to leave the “real” world behind now and again. Not just for a few hours, but for a few days. Boats like this make this possible—in essence, the T29 Explorer is one big, giant pause button. TGIF!
By Lenny Rudow
Bayliner Trophy T29EX Specifications:
LOA: 29’10”
Beam: 9’9”
Draft (max.): 3’7”
Displacement (approx.): 6508 lbs.
Fuel Capacity: 126 gal.
Max HP: 450
Local Dealer: Riverside Marine in Essex, MD, (410) 686-1500 or riversideboats.com