Sea Ray 390 Sundancer
Sometimes, you just want to get aboard your boat and put as much distance as possible between yourself and civilization. But on other occasions, getting away from it all could mean setting yourself right in the center of the action - docking within walking distance of museums, theaters and major league sporting events and enjoying world-class dining, shopping and night life.
That's exactly where I found myself last July, floating just a tee shot away from the eastern façade of Chicago's Soldier Field and within walking distance of the Windy City's numerous urban attractions. This downtown getaway was actually a bonus, a fortunate addition to a research project, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.
Several weeks earlier, I set out to track down a sterndrive-powered version of Sea Ray's 390 Sundancer. This particular model was of interest because it can be fitted with shafts, outdrives or pod drives and either diesel or gas propulsion. Having previously obtained performance numbers for both Zeus/diesel and V-drive/gas versions of this boat, I wanted to run a stern-drive model to see how the various propulsion systems stacked up in the real world.
The opportunity came with an invitation to Chicago, where the publisher of Sea Ray Living magazine offered access to its corporate 390 Sundancer. The rest was as easy as booking a flight into the Midway airport, then taking the Orange Line to the Roosevelt Station. Our boat was waiting at the Burnham Harbor Marina, and the weather report called for several days of sunshine, light winds and mild temperatures. The performance test had just become a nautical vacation.
When it comes to urban waterfronts, few places can match Chicago for both aesthetics and access. The shoreline is neither blighted by heavy industry nor hidden behind a beachfront bastion of exclusive high-rise residences. Instead, it is a shoreline given to public parks, walkways and beaches, a democratic venue that becomes a focal point of summer activity for city dwellers and visitors alike.
On the Sunday afternoon when I arrived, Grant Park was filled with live jazz and savory aromas, as crowds flocked to the annual Taste of Chicago. Motoryachts and sailboats crisscrossed the blue waters of Lake Michigan; fishermen lined the sun-baked seawalls, and bikers, Rollerbladers, joggers and strollers shared the lakefront trails. After stowing my bags aboard the 390, I found myself within walking distance of some of Chicago's favorite tourism venues: the Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago and Glessner House Museum.
That evening, pleasantly tired after taking in the requisite sites, I relaxed in the cockpit and got to know a few of my dockside neighbors. The couple across the dock never got the ambition to take their boat out over the weekend and instead spent their afternoon sunning on the aft deck. They planned to sleep over before returning to the suburbs Monday morning. An early retiree spending the summer on his vintage Hatteras motoryacht stopped by to welcome me and offer suggestions on dining and entertainment options. As the sun set, several adjacent boats I assumed were sitting vacant blossomed with lights and music as owners emerged from their cabins to socialize and take in the cool evening lake breeze.
Chicago has the nation's largest municipal harbor system, with nine marinas that stretch from Lincoln Park southward to Jackson Park, offering some 5,000 seasonal and transient slips. A number of the marinas, including Burnham, have the feel of summer communities, as seasonal regulars hold on to their slip assignments year after year and often spend time aboard during the warmer months even when they don't slip the lines.
Monday morning dawned like a gift from the chamber of commerce, with crisp temperatures in the mid-70s, cloudless blue skies and just enough of a breeze to keep the sailboats moving out on the sapphire-blue lake. After gathering performance data on the twin MerCruiser-equipped 390, I felt justified in doing a bit of waterfront sightseeing. The first stop was one of Chicago's longtime landmarks: the Navy Pier.
When completed in 1916, this 3,300-foot-long structure was the largest pier in the world. Pier 2, as it was then known, was one of five planned for the Chicago waterfront, but the only one completed. It was originally conceived as a combination freight dock, passenger terminal and public gathering place. But with commercial freight shifting from freighters to rail and truck traffic, the recreational aspects of the pier soon eclipsed its utilitarian intentions. Renamed Navy Pier in honor of WWI veterans, it soon became a focal point of city life and was transformed by pavilions, dance halls, theaters and playgrounds. By the 1950s, more than 2 million visitors per year flocked to the Pier, and today it remains Chicago's number-one tourist attraction.
Unfortunately, there is currently little or no room for private boats to tie up and enjoy the Navy Pier's attractions. But that will change next year if the city follows through with a plan to build a new 240-slip marina adjacent to Navy Pier. Currently, the remains of Dime Pier are nothing more than a collection of rocks and rotting pilings that provide resting space for seagulls. It will become the site of Gateway Harbor, a new facility expected to include 160 transient slips, 40 of which will be hourly slips to accommodate boaters visiting Navy Pier. The remainder will provide a prime location for cruisers - especially those stopping over before beginning the next leg of the Great Loop route to the Mississippi River and beyond.
Any vessel heading for the inland river system must first pass through the Chicago Harbor Lock. Situated at the mouth of the Chicago River, this lock is the gateway to one of the nation's busiest waterways. Each year, some 50,000 vessels, 900,000 passengers and 200,000 tons of freight move through the lock. The lock is also unique because it actually lowers boat traffic headed in the direction one would assume to be upstream.
In its natural state, the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan. As Chicago grew from a small trading post to one of the nation's major cities, the river absorbed the growing effluent of agriculture, industry and human habitation, bearing them into the lake and sullying the water supply. The construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in the mid-1800s not only provided a navigable water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, it also changed the river's flow. By the latter half of the 20th century, the river benefitted from major improvements in water quality, but it continues to flow west and south, away from the lake.
After passing through the lock, I was soon under the Lakeshore Drive drawbridge and into the very heart of the city. Iconic buildings towered overhead while the river itself was alive with a steady stream of tour boats. Heavier commercial traffic still moves on the river as well, requiring the occasional raising of the city's 38 movable bridges. In the heyday of river traffic, many Chicago residents considered bridge openings to be more nuisance than spectacle. But for history buffs, the river now provides a chance to see some of the finest remaining examples of the trunnion bascule lift bridge in operation.
In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on the health and future of the river. Most everyone is in favor of ongoing efforts to restore water quality. Some favor returning the flow to its original direction; others talk of isolating the waterway from the Mississippi Basin to control the spread of invasive species. Whatever the outcome of such discussions, the upper section remains one of the most spectacular urban cruises one can find. After sampling the attractions of Chicago's urban waterfront, I definitely plan to return and spend even more time enjoying the cool lake breezes, blue waters and abundant downtown diversions.
Power Plays
Gas or diesel; shafts, pods or outdrives? Sea Ray's 390 Sundancer provides a unique opportunity to compare propulsion and drive systems on a level playing field, as it is one of the few models on the market that can accommodate all these options.
First up was gasoline inboards turning conventional shafts through a V-drive transmission. Gas engines have long been the best option for smaller inboard and most all I/O-powered boats, thanks to their higher power-to-weight ratios and lower initial costs, as compared to diesels. Where gas engines - especially older carbureted models - got a bum rap was when installed in larger motoryachts that required the engines to operate in the upper rpm range to turn larger props and lift heavy hulls.
By comparison, the modern, fuel-injected 370 hp MerCruisers tested in the 390 fared much better. They displayed the typical midrange sweet spots and the high-end falloff that are typical of gas power engines. Top speed was significantly lower than the other two propulsion options. Some of this difference can be attributed to the greater drag created by shafts and larger props, but I suspect the numbers would have been closer to those delivered by the outdrive-equipped 390 if equivalent 425 hp power plants were installed.
The efficiency and reduced drag of the dual-prop drives almost always results in a higher top end, all other things being equal, but the shaft-driven hull did deliver better numbers at speeds in the 15 to 20 mph range. This is not a range where one would normally operate, but in rough seas, the ability to power home efficiently at sub-20 speeds is really appreciated.
A new breed of lighter-weight, higher-output diesels has narrowed the power-to-weight gap with gas engines, allowing them to become viable options in smaller, faster boats. But it's the pod drives that created the most excitement in recent years. At the upper end of the speed range, the Zeus drives provided the 390 with a dramatic increase in efficiency, but in the mid-20 mph range, both of the gas-powered boats stacked up quite favorably.
The other power/drive combination of interest, but for which I was not able to obtain test data, was the 300 hp Yanmar diesels with V-drives. Based on conversations with Sea Ray engineers and comparative data, I'd expect this combination to deliver midrange efficiency somewhere between the Axius and Zeus options.
After crunching the numbers, no power/ propulsion option stood as the best solution for all cases. As the average boater puts less than 100 hours on his engine each year, it would take a very long time to offset the initial cost difference of diesels based on fuel consumption alone. In a freshwater environment, the speed advantages and ease of operation provided by the Axius/outdrive combo would be my first choice, though the simplicity and robust nature of the shaft drives might push me in that direction if operating primarily in salt water.
The Yanmar/V-drive option would likely provide a slight increase in efficiency over the gas option - possibly extending cruising range by 10 to 20 percent - but the choice would really come down to personal preference and the availability of various fuels in a given cruising area. Without question, the Zeus option gives a dramatic increase in high-end efficiency, along with the incredible ease of joystick-controlled docking. But this performance comes at a significant increase in price. The $100,000 upsell could not be justified on fuel savings alone, but it might seem a worthwhile investment for boaters who want the optimum combination of speed and handling.
