ROOM TO SPARE

ANGLER’S LATEST CENTER CONSOLE. BY JOHN BROWNLEE

Angler’s new 230VBX packs a lot into a mere 23 feet of fishing boat—its bracket design provides extra fishing room in the cockpit, and an innovative forward seating design gives passengers plenty of room to sit, while also letting fishermen easily move all the way forward to either fight fish, or deploy the anchor.

The forward seats have two benches positioned parallel to the hullsides, with plenty of dry storage below. But the seats taper out and end before reaching the bow, allowing you to walk all the way forward without having to step up. That will make it easy when you’ve got a big fish on the line and need to get to the bow in a hurry. And the boat’s anchor, housed in a forward locker with hanging vertical storage, will be very easy to retrieve and deploy. Low profile aluminum handrails extends aft to a point even with the console.

A seat is molded into the forward end of the console, and a door on the starboard side affords access to a surprisingly roomy head compartment.You can order an optional portapotty, or leave the space open to provide a large amount of dry storage. The helm is to port with plenty of space for flush mounting electronics above it, with the switches laid out below it, where they are easy to see and to reach.

Our test boat had the optional leaning post (pedestal chairs come standard), with four rod holders arranged in a rocket launcher and room for a cooler beneath it. Coaming pads ran part of the way down the inner hullsides, even with the console, and there were molded rod holders on either side beneath the gunwales. A stylish, powder-coated T-top adorned the console, with four more rod holders along its aft edge. The t-top and rocket launcher come together as part of an options package.

Aft, our test boat had the optional fold-up passenger seats built into the transom bulkhead. A livewell sits on the centerline in the bulkhead, and two fish boxes occupy space beneath the deck outboard of the centerline. There’s no transom gate, but it’s simple to step up and over the bulkhead onto the engine bracket, where there’s a standard swim ladder built in. The bracket design really opens up the cockpit area, and three or four big guys could fish back here all day with no problem whatsoever.

I ran a 230 on a very windy day in the Florida Keys, and came away impressed with its stability and dryness. By carefully choosing my angle to the steep chop (we awoke to 30- knot winds that morning!), I found I could get anywhere I wanted to go and still stay dry. And even running down-sea in such slop, it remained level and predictable. The boat’s 21.5-degree transom deadrise lets it ride straight and true, and also helps knock down a chop.

With a single F250 Yamaha four-stroke for power, the 230VBX cruises at 33.7 mph at 4000 rpm while burning a miserly 10.8 mpg. That’s pretty good economy for a boat with a 3,000 pound dry hull weight. Push the throttle all the forward, and the boat hits 52 mph at 5250 rpm. Like all Angler boats, the 230VBX is built using hand-laid fiberglass lamination and no wood whatsoever, and Angler is so sure of these proven construction methods, that they offer the boat with a lifetime limited hull warranty.

On top of that, you can get the boat in one of five different gelcoat colors, so you have a lot of choices. Standard features include a self-bailing cockpit, a non-skid deck, hydraulic steering, chromed bronze through-hulls, and an acrylic windshield. Major options include the T-top and rocket launcher, a bow pulpit with an anchor roller, a freshwater shower, and a stainless steel rub rail.

The 230VBX is a lot of boat for the money, and there’s very little you can’t do with a boat like this. If you’re in the market for a 23-footer that’s capable of some serious offshore work and comes ready to fish, this one should be on your short list.

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