Carolina Skiff, building boats for more than 30 years, has also built a reputation for reliability, durability and safety, all at a moderate price.
At the heart of a Carolina Skiff, including its Sea Chaser line, is patented box-beam construction. Logs of U.S. Coast Guard-approved flotation foam, individually glassed into the hull, effectively become hull-stiffening fiberglass stringers, giving the boat a rigid bottom that stands up to the toughest conditions. Carolina Skiff is NMMA–certified, each boat built to a high set of standards — a strength our surveyed skiff owners ranked highly important.
Carolina Skiff’s uncomplicated design and straight-forward construction techniques also contributed to high scores in fishability and performance. Those attributes are linked here: good off-plane performance from a hull whose deck is steady underfoot; that shallow-draft hull at home in skinny water but swift at speed. Wide-open decks provide unhindered casting platforms, too.
Put safety, economy and simple fishability all together, and it’s no wonder that this brand dots waterways all along the coast on any given weekend; Carolina Skiff drew the third-highest number of responses in our survey overall, tops in the 15- to 20-foot range and fourth in 21- to 25-foot.
Sea Chaser 21 LX Bay Runner
As Carolina Skiff points out, its Sea Chaser Bay Runner boats aren’t strict specialists limited to bay-boat work: they’re general practitioners at home in rivers and lakes, too, and can make carefully calculated ventures offshore — all at prices much friendlier to the budget than others in their class.
The Sea Chaser 21 LX Bay Runner, like its bigger sibling, the 23 LX, is first and foremost a fishing machine. It has a self-bailing deck, rod storage in gunwales and in twin forward locking boxes, and six rod holders lining the center console. Forward, an insulated, in-deck fish box welcomes fishing success; folding rear jump seats are ready for a run or a break. It has several fiberglass hatches, one storage locker with a five-gallon cast-net bucket. Console and rear baitwells are LED-illuminated and aerated, with high-speed water pickups. There’s a lot of battery-friendly LED lighting on this boat, in fact, including the navigation lights, courtesy lights and even LED-lit cup holders.
With gunwale height generous for its class, the 21 LX welcomes all kinds of family fun, including cruising, snorkeling or just messing around on the water — but especially fishing.
MORE INFO: carolinaskiff.com
