The Steiger Craft 255 Miami is a fishing boat with a full cabin that you'll want to check out, especially if you enjoy activities like trolling for winter ocean stripers or off-season Chesapeake Bay fishing options that take place when conditions are difficult. We'll get into the details in a second, but first, here's a quick video review we shot of the 255 Miami:
If you want to hit the water no matter what the weather’s like, you need a fishing boat with protection – and a pilot house model will be tough to beat. Unlike many others the Steiger Craft is fairly customizable, and as we mentioned in the video you can have options for a full solid aft bulkhead (called the Chesapeake model, no less) or an open rear with aft canvass; a second station in the cockpit; and a port-side tackle station and additional rocket launchers.
Speaking of rocket launchers, this boat is ready for serious striper trolling right out of the box with a set of six launchers on the back of the hard-top plus four flush-mount gunwale holders, and you can opt for more. The hard-top has stainless-steel grab rails running down each side, so you can stack your boards on top, easily secure them in place, and have an elevated position to run your board lines from. Some other standard-issue items that many other builders list as cost-adding extras include the raw water washdown, a compass, dedicated sinker trays, a head, recessed trim tabs, and both port and starboard windshield wipers. When you look at just how many “extras” are included as standard, the pricing of this boat (a little over $100K and up, depending on just how many extras you get and the power choice), seems quite reasonable, too.
Room for improvement? We’ll point out the livewell depends on a stand-pipe, which can be aggravating when you’re chasing down the last spot or two with a dip net and it gets in the way. We also wish the fishbox in the sole wasn’t quite so far forward, because it could make for a messy cabin when a feisty fish slings blood. Note, however, that if Steiger Craft chose instead to utilize flanking in-deck boxes farther aft on the sides of the centered fuel tank (as is commonly seen on many big-name production boats), they wouldn’t be nearly as deep and fishbox capacity would be limited to schoolies instead of trophies.
Steiger Crafts are built the old-fashioned way up on Long Island, starting with molds and plugs designed and built in-house. After the gel coat’s applied to the mold hand-laid glass goes in, including layers of matt followed by multiple layers of bi-axial woven-roving. Stringers are foam-injected fiberglass, then below-deck voids are foamed. Pieces-parts like the deck then get affixed with Plexus, screwed in place, and are fiberglassed. Nope, there’s no wood in there. So, just how does this old-school construction stack up? Steiger Craft began offering a transferable limited lifetime warranty on their hulls in 1990. So far, they’ve had to replace exactly zero hulls.
One of the rather surprising factoids about the 255 DV is that despite the relatively heavy build it gets rather good fuel economy. Powered by a single F300 Yamaha V-6 Offshore outboard you can plan on cruising in the mid-20s while getting around 2.8 mpg. Goose it up to a 35-mph cruise, and you’ll still be getting better then two miles to the gallon. And even at wide-open (hitting speeds in the low to mid 40s) economy never drops below 1.5 mpg. Since this boat holds a whopping 150 gallons of fuel (and has a legal-to-tow 8’6” beam) that means hauling it to the beach and taking shots out to the canyons will be no problem.
You say you want a boat you can run in comfort, in the snow, sleet, and rain? Then there’s a good chance a pilot house is going to be your pick… and there’s also a good chance it’s time to start setting up those sea trials.
Steiger Craft 255 Miami Specifications:
LOA – 25’6”
Beam – 8’6”
Displacement – 4,900 lbs.
Draft (hull) – 1’8”
Transom Deadrise – 21 degrees
Fuel Capacity – 150 gal
Max HP – 300
Area Dealers – Annapolis Yacht Sales, Annapolis, MD, (410) 267-8181; Stevensville, MD, (410) 941-4847; Deltaville, VA, (804) 776-7575; and Virginia Beach, VA, (757) 512-6456.