Sea Ray

Sea Ray started in 1959 when Cornelius "Connie" Ray bought the assets of a small Detroit fiberglass shop called Carr-Craft and set up Ray Industries in Oxford, Michigan. He brought in automotive design talent to style the boats and built a dealer network around service rather than just sales, which helped the company grow quickly through the 1960s and 1970s. Brunswick Corporation bought Sea Ray in 1986 for 350 million dollars and folded it into what became the Brunswick Boat Group, with the brand's headquarters moving to Knoxville, Tennessee shortly after. Brunswick put the brand up for sale in 2017, then pulled it back a year later and cut the large yacht and sport yacht lines, steering the company toward smaller boats instead.

The current lineup runs from the SPX bowriders and runabouts at 19 to 23 feet, up through the SLX sport boats, the SDX deck boats, and the Sundancer cabin cruisers at 32 and 37 feet, with most models available in either outboard or sterndrive form. Sea Ray is known for exterior styling that stays consistent across the range, deep V hulls that ride well in light chop, and cockpits built around family day boating and watersports rather than fishing or racing. It has stepped back from the large yacht market it once competed in and now concentrates on boats people can tow, dock easily, and use for a weekend rather than a season aboard.

Owners generally report that Sea Rays hold up well with regular maintenance, and resale values stay reasonable, with the Sundancer line in particular considered easy to move used. Parts and service are widely available because Sea Ray sits inside the same Brunswick network that supports Boston Whaler and Bayliner, and most engines are Mercury or MerCruiser products with dealers in nearly every boating market. Long time owners will also tell you that quality has varied by model year, older hulls in particular have had water intrusion and hardware issues that took real effort to chase down, and some engine packages have been called underpowered for the boat's weight. Even so, a lot of buyers who start with an SPX end up moving up within the Sea Ray range rather than switching brands, which says more about the ownership experience than any spec sheet.