16 ft arima reviews

[top fuel]

looking to purchase one, sea chaser I think any pros and cons would be appreciated comes with 75 merc two stroke.

 

[Fishalot]

I had a 1994 16’ Arima Sea Explorer with a 60 Mercury 2 stroke. Great boat and very stable for fishing. You will find it pounds in chop so you will need to slow down. Compared to a deep v like Double Eagle not as good for speed. I have trim tabs on my 17’ Sea Chaser which really helps in chop. The 16’ differs in beam depending on year so check that on Arima Owners forum.

 

[Whole in the Water]

They generally need less power to push them along, but their flatter bottoms do pound in the chop. I would think having trim tabs to reduce this is a must.

 

[MillwrightMike]

I have an early (1987) Sea Explorer which is just under 16ft. It's great, stable, low power requirements, easy to launch and retrieve solo. I have a Yamaha F70 on mine and it is fantastic.

It does pound in a chop, compared to my previous 18ft Hourston, but I just slow down. In a 16ft boat I'm not heading out any extreme distances anyways and just stay home to do something else if the weather is too snotty.

In a few years when when my two toddlers became bigger boys I'll be looking for a 17 or 19 (not sure the 19 would fit in my garage) just to have more room and range.

 

[Tom Mac]

The whole line up of Arima's are great boats, yes they will pound in heavy chop only bad thing I can see, but with trim tabs you can hold a plane at a very low speed. Lots of good points, nice and wide makes the boat stable and the dance floor bigger, you can run lower power with the dory style hull, cheep on fuel. Check out the Arima owners forum them boys know everything Arima!

Ian 17ft Arima Sea Ranger

 

[Devmah]

I have a 21’ ranger and I have herd that the smaller Arimas do chop, I don’t really have this issue... Arimas are very safe, stable and well built boats. I have herd of only a few that had any stringer issues and that was due to negligence....
If you see and like a used Arima act fast as it won’t last on the market, usually they only are put on sale in a divorce, upgrade or the owner passed away...
Blindmonkey, Tom Mac, Millwrightmike and I are members of the Arima forum and that is one of the best parts of owing a Arima, there is good support from the owners and the factory reps Belinda, Don and Bo.

Defiance boats now owns Arima and they are still in production.


Dev

 

[SOFAKING]

i have a 1989 17 sea chaser completly redone with a 90 hp 4st and an 8hp kicker. great boat. if it pounds to much..........to rough to fish solo anyways. there is one issue that is easily corrected.......heavy in the stern, move batteries forward.lots of good info on arima forum from people that own them, not just armchair owners. They are extremely difficult to get and most of the older ones still have the 2 strokes.People still demand big$ for old power. good luck

 

[Southern Neighbor]

I have a 1990 19' ranger hardtop and put a Suzuki 140 hp main and 9.9 kicker on it in 2017. It does pound a bit, but I need to fix the trim tabs and hope I can better control the pounding once the tabs are working. Four people with four shrimp pots and all the associated gear and we were still running 35 mph on flat water. We even ran out of La Push this year for halibut and the wind was up so we got tossed around a bit, but it never felt unsafe and we had a great time fishing. In hindsight, I'm 6-3 and the hardtop is too low for me and it also cuts into some of the fishing space. If I were to buy Arima again I would probably go with the sea chaser and canvas top to give a little more room for fishing and less chance of banging my head on the top.

 

[MillwrightMike]

Any other Arima Forum members have trouble accessing the site? I'm getting a message saying I'm permanently banned, and unable to login or register another profile. A shame as it's a great resource and I certainly did nothing to warrant a ban.

 

[Saxe Point]

Working normally for me.

 

[Fishalot]

Clear your cache and cookies.

 

[Tom Mac]

Test test test yup working!

 

[MillwrightMike]

Yup, that worked. Thanks fellows.

 

[Bifmalibu]

I believe in '91 Arima introduced a secondary chine to the hull. This reduced spray to some degree, I have read.

 

[Tom Mac]

Not a secondary chine.... the chines where just just made bigger. I believe not all models changed to the larger chine in 91, but I do know the 17 foot did, I have one!

 

[MillwrightMike]

Yes, my 87 Sea Explorer doesn't have the more pronounced chines or wider deck coaming of the 91 and newer hulls. I still love it for what we paid for it. I haven't really noticed much spray though, since in a 16 ft mod Vee hull you can't blast through the waves like a big boat anyways...

 

[dabell]

I had a 16' Arima for 5 years, no regrets (sold last year). 50 hp motor would do 25 mph, sometimes had issues with speed in the 2 ft ish chop, but was nice that very stable in some big swells/conditions while coming back.