>>1050305My greater point is that if you go 70mph on choppy water (1ft+ waves) the boat will not last long due to the amount of pounding it receives, I've seen too many bass boats that developed loose rivets and stress cracks from being driven hard, if you go by that rule there's really only a narrow window of conditions that you can actually use the ability to go 70mph on any sort of large water body, thus your better off going 20 and having the boat last longer so why even have the extra horsepower in the first place.
When you combine that with the low sides and shallow bow which cripple it's ability to handle heavier conditions it just seems like as a design it's really only meant to be used on calm lakes, and since a new one runs around 30K you might as well get a similarly sized center console which will be a much more capable boat overall, bass boats just have too small of a niche.
My definition of ,"waves," may be a little bit off though, I live on the Chesapeake bay, so on a good day your looking at a constant 1 foot chop which I consider normal, I'd call conditions ,"waves," once it reaches the 3 foot mark, at least around here bass boats are confined to the local rivers.