Posts: 32949
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | kap - 11/22/2025 7:42 AM
Tuffy boats selling point was they were quite a bit cheaper. They were ok on samller bodies of water. Engineering was not there strong suit.They were narrow and didn't stop water from coming over sides and getting you wet when driving in the earlier models. They did get better. Recon will most likely address this.
Tuffy started building boats in '76. It was a tri-hull, which of course was narrow and wet riding in big water, it was designed for the smaller waters of WI and IL. The Marauder (also Esox LTD) was not wet if the driver understood trim until in really rough stuff, then again a mismatch. The 160 and 1800 were way better, but still not big water crushers. Those hulls were designed by Associated Marine Design ( and I loved them for my water). The introduction of the true V hulls capped off the Tuffy line. I owned all the V models from the 1700 to the 2100, and none were any wetter than comparable deep Vs; in other words they ran pretty dry even in big water. I really liked the 1760.
Recon is planning to eventually produce a complete line of Tuffy Boats--By Recon.
By the way, Fiberdome Inc., the company that produced Tuffy, had an incredibly talented engineer, designing crazy stuff as complicated as the front clip for a couple of military trucks, which was some cool stuff. He created the Esox Mag, still Tuffy's best seller. The 1700 was a southern Il company that went bust, the 1760 same, 1890 a Fisher hull, and 2100 Ron's work. |
