The best boats are the ones you can share with people. At least, that’s what people without boats will want you to believe. But there might be some truth to that. Philosophically speaking, in the social media age, if you’re having fun and no one knows about it, did you ever really have fun? Sure you can take pictures and tell stories, but if there are more people taking more pictures and telling more stories, suddenly, that fun seems exponentially more. That being said, when you begin adding more passengers, your boating needs and demands increase at an alarming rate. Space is already at a premium, and with even more bodies to deal with an entertain, the need for a little ingenuity becomes significant.
Thankfully, Rinker has brought us the Q7. On the surface, the Q7 feels very open and flows extremely well from front to back. Up front there is a large bow cockpit that allows full sized human beings to sit and relax without worrying about blocking the view from the helm. There is a myriad of seating available aft of the helm — a 4 foot couch and a 9 foot bench both adore the rear, giving plenty of room to stretch your legs and get some sun. The helm itself is well thought out. Inside the console there is a cockpit table, cooler and even a door mounted garbage can all hidden away nicely. The dash board comes with a Simrad touchscreen front and center, flanked by all the requisite toggle switches that look useful without appearing too cluttered or busy. A subtle touch is the comfortable built in arm rest for your weary throttle arm. Flip up bolster bucket seats are comfortable, yet sporty for driver and passenger. All the way out back, there are twin swim platforms off the transom that add even more space to sit, or use at your leisure.
The port console hides the very well hidden head, that comes standard with a port-a-potty or a full toilet as an option. Behind the helm there is a full sink, optional refrigerator, and even a built in Waring blender for those who can’t bear a day at sea without a pina colada. Out back there a built in cut outs on the rear seats, replete with cupholders to allow for seating to be just that — seating, while the extra spaces takes on the burden of holding all the extras passengers like to bring along. There is even a dedicated cubby for the dock lines to keep them out of the way.
The outboard motors affixed to a bracket bolted to the transom, and is a very healthy Mercury Verado 300 that allows the Q7 to run to 30 mph in 8.3 seconds and to a top speed of 54 mph @ 6,420 rpm, which is fairly impressive considering the Q7’s length overall of 27’ 2” (beam of 8’6”) and nigh-5,000 pound dry weight. That weight, while potentially seeming to be a negative, actually helps the Rinker feel extremely confident and self-assured during turns and traversing wakes. The best fuel mileage was attained at 22 mph @ 3,500 rpm, which allowed for a 8.50 gallon per hour fuel burn.
All in all, the Rinker Q7 offers up a lot of versatility and space to allow its owner to bring a large group of people, and give them a very spacious and roomy place to experience the open water. And we all know that if there is more room for people to have fun, and if they are having fun then there will be more proof sent out into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else. And with all that photographic proof, you can know, for sure, that you had a ton of fun that day, because everyone else did too.
