My father has a 2004 Sabre and I just bought a 2008 PII. After having fished tournaments out of the Sabre for a long time, here are a few comparisons/comments about the two boats. Once again, jusy my opinion and not bashing either as both are great boats. The biggest factors that drove me to getting out of the Sabre and into a PII were: 1) The front deck is shorter and narrower than the PII which really comes into play while fishing. In the Sabre, I really could only lay rods on one side or the other of the deck because the reels and handles basically are under your feet. Stack the rods on both sides or have pedistal seat in and you dont have much room to stand. 2) Rod boxes are too short to accomodate many of the 7+ rods (especially spinning rods). Your basically have to put your longest rods closest to the keel as the tubes seem a little longer there. I think it holds a total of seven or eight rods in the box. I still had one spinning rod that would not fit in the box period. 3) If you do go with a Sabre I would definately not reccommend a second console. Gets pretty tight getting between the two no matter how small you are which can get hairy when net get called for. 4) Speed – top speed is 61 mph (150 merc XR6, 59 mph loaded) which was a little slow for me. 5) Single storage box in center front deck – really nice to be able to split your gear up between two boxes simply for organizational purposes. Having said all that I realize that most of these comments are simply related to the fact the boat is an 18 boat and its not fair to compare to a larger boat. The boat is great for an 18 boat and I dont think youll find a better riding or built boat in that class. I have no issues with any of the prior comments on the PII. Lots of front deck space, 9 full length rods fit in each box, no second console so I cant compare, top speed 73 mph, and two center storage boxes up front. The back deck and storage boxes really dont feel much larger IMO.
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