Your right Cougar... Ill chime in.....
When we moved up from our '99 258 to our '03 268, that was one of my top items on the wish list. Why? I love the look of them, we dont have radar at this point, but you never know. I think it sets the lines off on the cruiser (not putting any down that dont like or have) its all personal prefrence.
The 268 was in production from '99 - '05. As far as the fiberglass arch, ours is aluminum, and I believe they all are up to '05, but I dont know for sure. I think they went fibergalss on the '05 V278.
If your interested, I am looking to put a deal together to get a 318 and sell our 268, PM me if interested.
As far as pros and cons to an arch, is bridge clearance, or trailering clearance. Having said that, we have never had an issue with either. Trailer height is 12' 6" and bridge clearance is 10" 6" for the cons. For the pros, for us, looks and somewhere to hang the flatscreen from in the cockpit.
Other musts.... for us a generator, we use it every time we go out, microwave, charge the batteries while you are rocking the stereo, TV DVD for the kids while out, keep my laptop and cell phone charged...
A good mattress to sleep on, we always sleep in the aft berth, so we dont always have to make up the V. Besides as someone said in another thread, making a berth with fill in cushoins.... something we let the kids sleep on, I had a custom mattress made for the aft berth, while it is still foam, its much thicker, and not split in the middle, I split it more towards your feet, just so I can get into the storage area under the berth without having my hips fall into the canyon of the original cushions.
another must is a windlass, I didnt think so when we first bought the boat, but after the first time the admiral had to TRY and pull the anchor in 3-4 waves, while I tried to steer the boat to the anchor, at the same time watching a little Rinler Captiva with a windlass, pull anchor and hit the throttle, had me sold, ordered on the next week and put it on
Thats about all I can think of, sorry fo rthe long windedness.... better than arguing with the kids tonite...
