Stingray's package deal, the 192RS, is another example of why boats in this size range are the most popular on the water. It's 19 feet long with a beam of 7 feet 7 inches, so it's still in the easy-to-tow-and-stow category, but it also has enough room to pile six or eight of your friends on board and can even handle a little off-shore action. Since it has a cuddy cabin, you could catch a few winks if you had to. The 192 RS even manages to somehow squeeze a standard portable head with a self-contained holding tank on board.

The 192RS also offers a choice of cockpit arrangements: either the twin captain seat with rear bench and sun-lounge, or the captain's seat with passenger back-to-back lounger and twin jump seats aft. Either way, you still get an integrated swim platform and Stingray's patented Z-plane hull, as well as your choice of MerCruiser engines, as long as you want either the 3.0LX Alpha or the 4.3L Alpha. I'd recommend going with the bigger engine and the jump seats instead of the sunlounge, but I don't usually go out on a boat in order to lay around. Put that in-floor ski locker to use, I say. Plus, I think the jump-seat setup gives you a bit more moving-around room in the cockpit, something you'll appreciate when you're swinging a wake board around.

Dave Kelley
Boating World
March 1999