Hey Marko…funny you should ask…just an hour ago I was talking to the guy who bought my Kodiak 26—he has it on the market again because he just stepped up for an Ocean Roamer (!!!) He asked me if I wanted to buy it back……uh….dude…..thanks anyway but I already have a boat….
The Commander was a huge step up for me….I do all my boating alone so I stressed over the launch/retrieve and trailering stuff on what in effect is a very heavy 30 footer but I figured all that out (says the guy who just launched last week with the tie-down straps still attached to the trailer)
The extra beam—-It’s amazing what happens when you tack a bit of beam onto a boat (the guy who just bought the Ocean Roamer has over 10’ 9” of beam to play with!) The beam difference between the Kodiak and the Commander is instantly noticeable. For me the biggest part of the extra beam—-I can now COMFORTABLY walk around the edge of the wheelhouse to do my anchoring duties. The Kodiak had 4” of glass to plant your feet on with the stainless railing situated so if you did fall, you’d probably break both legs on the way down into the water (really)
The COmmander has almost double that . I’m a dog owner so I’m dropping and retrieving the anchor at least 3 times a day….it would be a Nightmare on Elm Street to fall off your boat while anchoring all by your lonesome so it’s nice to be able to relax when I’m adding a bit of exposure to my sea trials several times a day
Next…the head. The head on the Commander is down a flight of stairs. The head on the Kodiak was on the port side, just opposite the galley, same level as the deck. It was a huge PITA to be in a fleet of boats or in a marina in tight quarters trying to see through the aft window to your port side because the glass in the head on the Kodiak would reflect and distort.
It’s a breath of fresh air to now have the head below decks…no more window distortion….and speaking of fresh air… it’s Nice to have a fresh water flushed head—- minimal odor compared to the salt-water flush of the Kodiak head….it’s those little things that add up
Everything else is pretty much the same—-I never would have stepped up for the Commander if it didn’t have Optimus 360 in BOTH the wheelhouse and out on the aft deck…reason….the larger SEasports have a fairly large wheelhouse profile so they tend to get shoved around by the wind. When you’re trying to nuzzle into a fuel dock alone in-between other boats, that Optimus 360 is really nice to have. I also had it on the Kodiak so once you get a taste, you just gotta have one. I got lucky buying pre-owned on both boats to get that option——those things are in nose-bleed territory if you wanted to retrofit after the fact
The smart move I made (despite protests from some of the guys on this same site) was to belly up to the bar for a slab of a kicker (Yamaha T25) I wouldn’t admit in polite company what I had to pay for it but for me, it was money well spent. Even in a stiff wind all I have to do is nudge the throttle and instant response. And I run it off a separate tank—-if I ever have issues with bad gas in the main tanks, I have an insurance policy in that T25
So, in short, it’s a good solid boat with nice clean workmanship and is comfortable in big water. The guy who built it is instantly responsive to any questions I have and bends over backwards to help every time I make whiney noises about this and that.
My latest scheme….I’m thinking of yanking out all the Garmin electronics and replacing with Furuno, including the Fantom 18 radar. I measured the console cut-out this afternoon and I can fit the Furuno TZT16F inch screen into the hole without a lot of heart surgery. Last but not least, as of this past February, Furuno lopped $600 off the purchase price of the TzT3-16 making that Furuno MFD significantly cheaper then the 8616XSV I have in there now.
It’s a stone-cold mystery to me why anyone would even consider Garmin if they were planning out a new electronics suite for their boat …Furuno really is that much better, both the chartplotter for navigation (setting up routes and manipulating them etc etc) and the radar….the Furuno DRS4D-NXT is night and day as far as doppler radar is concerned….much crisper target resolution and target separation which leads to better situational awareness in the fog when you’re around alot of other boats
Last but not least, the Commander has nice lines!
