Sōlace 37CS Center Console Sea Trial and Review

Running in the Family

Running the Sōlace 37CS center console with the Dougherty family turns into a snapper slay day.

Ponce Inlet, the gateway to the Atlantic wedged in between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, Florida, was a complete circus. It was July 12th, and every able-bodied angler with access to a boat was headed offshore in the morning’s gray light to make the most of the Southeast’s single-day red snapper season.

All sorts of vessels, from jonboats to giant sportfishers, flooded the channel and motored toward open water. I was aboard the Sōlace 37CS center console powered by triple 350-horsepower Yamaha outboards with company founder Stephen Dougherty at the helm. I had a feeling we wouldn’t get stuck in the middle of the pack.

Once we escaped the no-wake zone, Dougherty punched the throttles, and the 37CS leaped out of the hole and fired off toward the horizon. This boat runs on a stepped hull designed in-house, that ventilates the bottom, helping achieve higher speeds and better fuel efficiency. We blazed past several boats at 52 knots in the confused seas and converging boat wakes. I leaned over to Dougherty and said, “That’s got to feel good.” His wide smile confirmed my assertion.

The Dougherty family has a long boatbuilding legacy. Stephen’s father, Bob, played a pivotal role in developing the unsinkable hull that made Boston Whaler famous. Stephen inherited the boat bug and accompanied his father to work as a kid. He quickly developed into a boat rat, hanging out at the shop, building things and learning the trade. He spent time in each department and worked on the assembly line. And when he wasn’t learning how to build boats, he expanded his knowledge by running them.

Growing up in Massachusetts, Stephen earned money clamming and lobstering. He’d catch bluefish to use for bait in his pots. He also painted boat bottoms, and most of his earnings went toward filling his boat’s fuel tank.

After a 30-year career at Boston Whaler, Bob Dougherty, along with Stephen, founded EdgeWater in 1992 and Everglades in 2002. As Stephen talks about boat design, he often mentions tidbits he learned while working with his father. Now 58 and manning this innovative boat laden with smart design elements, Dougherty is doing the same thing his father did: passing on his wealth of knowledge to his kids.

Joining us on the Sōlace 37CS was Sarah, Stephen’s wife, business partner and a longtime boating executive. Sarah was the one who invited me out for the day, and I quickly got the sense this boating couple doesn’t take many days off. Their 15-year-old son Ryan had stocked the starboard live well with pinfish we’d be using for snapper snacks.

Ryan was busy stowing gear and prepping tackle when I met up with them at 6 a.m. The Doughertys’ niece, Lena, an engineering student who is interning at Sōlace was also on board, as well as 12-year-old daughter Graycen; Sarah’s father, Randy, who is in his 70s; and Ashley Crawford, who has worked with the Doughertys since 2011.

When I stepped aboard the 37CS at the Miami boat show earlier this year, I was impressed with its versatility. This is a hardcore fishing boat designed to be equally at home entertaining family and friends. I was about to experience that.

Running with the windshield open felt great, as the Florida morning was already muggy. Stephen Dougherty said he came up with the idea for the windshield years ago boating at night to see fireworks on the Fourth of July. Initially, the design was focused on helping visibility with the added benefit of increasing air flow and helping the skipper communicate with crew on the bow. We cruised at 45 knots until we were far enough ahead of the pack to pull back the throttles. Seas were in the 2- to 4-foot range and close together, but the 37CS did not mind a bit. This is a dry, smooth-riding boat.

As we ran toward some bottom structure, Dougherty was fidgeting with a prototype Humphree stabilizing Interceptor system that was battling with the autopilot. When you’re a boatbuilder who embraces new technologies, these are the things you must contend with. He made some adjustments on the Garmin and seemed happy with the result. The boat also had a Quick gyro under a cockpit hatch, but we did not have it engaged.

We arrived to our first mark at 7 a.m. and spotted some life on the depth finder. I really liked the aft-facing screen on the hardtop for those who were fishing in the cockpit. There is a ton of room to fish on this boat, too. We had seven anglers fishing from the cockpit and down the side deck, and one in the bow. The transom is also well equipped, with two live wells, a large insulated cooler space and tuna tubes.

You can also find this video–and hundreds of our other reviews–here ▶ https://youtu.be/BmvJIssi7y0

Dougherty’s team has placed magnets beneath the 37’s gelcoat to hold seat cushions atop the transom cooler, and a backrest slides into the rocket launcher. Getting rid of snaps is the way to go. It’s much faster to remove the cushions, and they don’t slide around at all. I enjoyed the view from the transom as we ran one waypoint to the next. A cutting board—we were using squid—was tidily secured to the port live well with magnets, too.

The bench seat abaft the leaning post folds down to reveal tons of tackle storage and provides a nice flat surface for rigging. Another flat surface on the tackle storage is handy for tackle prep, and somehow Graycen managed to curl up and take a nap there.

Dougherty and his team did a fantastic job creating a safe place for everything from pliers to knife holders, including a slick gaff holder under the gunwale that has a cutout just the right size so the hook sits perfectly in place.

Sarah caught the first snapper of the day, laughing as Ryan teased her a bit. It was nice to see the family enjoying the moment together even though the fish wasn’t big enough to toss into one of two in-deck fishboxes. I had a nice knock-down that I fought for a minute before the line parted, likely by a shark. Still, we had a steady pull of blue runners, almaco jacks and grunts.

Hooking red snapper requires positioning the boat right over the fish. Dougherty used Yamaha’s SetPoint function to keep the boat in the zone without dropping the anchor. You can then use the joystick to jog a bit in any direction an especially handy bottom-fishing tool. We were working waters of 60 to 120 feet and made several moves over the course of the day. Anchoring would’ve been a time-consuming endeavor, but one made much easier by the windlass.

Dougherty landed our first keeper on a live pinfish. Ryan gaffed it, and I opened the fishbox so he could swing the snapper onto the ice.

“That was probably the most expensive red snapper ever caught,” Sarah joked.

“Let’s not do that math,” I chimed in.

At one point a fishing line got wrapped in one of the props, and I was impressed with how calm and cool everyone remained. There was no stress or yelling. Standing on the deck between the outboards and the transom, Dougherty was able to free the line. These things happen, and it’s not worth getting upset about it.

On our final spot of the day, I kept losing my bait to small fish, so I grabbed a rod rigged with two smaller hooks and baited them with squid. I was instantly hooked up and reeled in a pair of grunts about the size of my palm. I put the small fish in the live well and rebaited, then handed the rod to Graycen, who spent most of the day napping and telling her brother to leave her alone. She hooked up immediately and reeled in another double, then another. She made a point to tell Ryan she caught twice as many fish as he did.

The day flew by as it often does on the water, and Dougherty made the call to head home. The Sōlace cruised comfortably at 40 knots, netting an impressive 1 mpg. With triple 350s, the boat tops out at 53 knots. If you move up triple 400s, Dougherty said it will run upward of 60 knots.

“I tell people the top-end speed is a byproduct of a boat performing well at cruising speed,” Dougherty says. “You have to have an efficient bottom and light weight so the boat is not working hard at cruise. It’s not just about top end speed; it’s also about how slow you can run. This boat planes at 10 mph—most stepped hulls won’t do that. It performs through the entire range.”

As we got back to the ICW and Dougherty dropped down to idle speed, I asked questions about his take on boat design. He said there are three ways to get an efficient hull: throw money at the construction process to make the boat lighter, add more horsepower or come up with a better design. Sōlace sticks to the latter ideology and you can see it from stem to stern.

Sōlace 37CS Center Console Test Numbers:

Sōlace 37CS Center Console Specifications:

LOA: 37’7”
Beam: 11’
Draft: 3’3””
Disp.: 14,000 lb.
Fuel: 512 gal.
Water: 40 gal.
Power: 3/350-hp Yamahas

This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/s%C5%8Dlace-37cs-center-console-sea-trial-and-review