The boat you own gets you to the reef and back. The boat you keep thinking about leaves the dock at four in the morning, runs ninety miles offshore with three friends aboard, fishes all day, and comes home without anyone doing arithmetic on the fuel gauge. That is a narrow, specific gap, and the Scout 357 LXF was built to fill it — 35 feet 3 inches of walkaround deck, 319 gallons under the sole, and a hull laid up the expensive way.
What Scout actually built here
The 357 LXF belongs to Scout's S-Class, the label the yard puts on its luxury models 33 feet and up. Two build decisions define the boat, and both come straight from Scout's own description of it.
The first is epoxy infusion. Scout lays up the 357's hull with an epoxy-infused laminate rather than the polyester resin that is standard across most of this size class. The yard's argument is structural stability, strength and a Class-A finish. The second decision is the bottom: Scout's dual stepped hull, carrying 22 degrees of deadrise at the transom. Dry weight without engines is 10,120 pounds — worth holding in your head, because it explains everything in the performance sheets.
The real decision: twin 450s or triple 400s
Scout publishes performance bulletins for two engine packages on this hull, and they describe two genuinely different boats.
Twin Yamaha 450 XTOs
Scout's bulletin records a 62.1 mph top speed at 6,100 rpm and 11.95 seconds from a standstill to 30 mph. The efficiency peak lands at 3,500 rpm: 35.0 mph at 1.21 miles per gallon. Scout's own estimated range for this package, with the Seakeeper aboard, is 385 miles.
Triple Mercury 400 V10s
The same hull with three engines runs 72.2 mph at 6,412 rpm, reaches 20 mph in 4.91 seconds and 30 mph in 7.37 seconds. Best efficiency comes at 4,000 rpm: 43.7 mph at 1.15 miles per gallon. Scout's estimated range here is 366 miles.
Read those two blocks next to each other and the choice writes itself. The twins give you a slower boat that covers almost the same distance with two engines to look after and a lighter transom. The triples give you back four and a half seconds to 30 mph and ten extra miles per hour at the top, and they do it while giving up only about five percent of the range. If most of your season is running out, drifting, and running home, the twins are the better boat. If your season includes days where getting to the fish first decides the day, the triples earn their keep in minutes.
Scout caps the 357 at 1,200 horsepower and, notably, lists its recommended cruising horsepower as TBD. The yard is not putting a number on that yet, so neither will we.
Fishing the boat
The 357 LXF is laid out to be fished hard by a small crew. Port and starboard fish boxes hold 43 gallons each. The transom adds a 60-gallon fishbox and storage well. The aerated cockpit baitwell is 47 gallons. Raw and fresh water washdown runs off a dedicated 25-gallon tank, and Scout fits a patented forward-facing anchor camera in the bow that displays at the helm — genuinely useful when you are setting on a number single-handed or easing into a crowded anchorage.
The transom is a fully walkable swim platform with a starboard walk-through and Esthec decking, with an Armstrong ladder. Three captain's chairs at the helm come with heated seats and individual flip-up bolsters as standard. The aft-facing bench converts to a raised prep table. Retractable rocket launchers, bow pop-up lights and an electric fiberglass cockpit sun shade are on the options list.
Overnight, honestly described
This is where you should set expectations before the sea trial rather than after. The 357's accommodation is an inner console berth, not a cabin — 6 feet 1 inch of console headroom, a double berth, a marine head with electric overboard discharge, a refrigerator, a port storage cabinet with a Corian countertop and a mirror. It is a real place to get out of the weather, change clothes and let a tired crew member lie down. It is not a stateroom, and Scout does not present it as one.
Two things to settle at the order desk. Air conditioning appears on Scout’s option list for this model rather than on the standard sheet. It is a build-sheet decision rather than a refit one, so make it before the hull is laid up. And the Seakeeper 3 gyro is standard here, with solar panels on the hardtop, an additional 50-amp charger and two more batteries in the package; Scout even lists a deletion credit if you do not want it. Most owners keep it.
Specifications
| Specification | Scout 357 LXF |
|---|---|
| Length overall | 35' 3" (10.74 m) |
| Beam | 10' 9" (3.28 m) |
| Draft (approx) | 24" |
| Transom deadrise | 22 degrees |
| Dry weight without engines (approx) | 10,120 lbs |
| Fuel capacity | 319 gal |
| Fresh water capacity | 23 gal |
| Black water capacity | 11 gal |
| Fish box capacity | 43 gal each, port and starboard |
| Cockpit baitwell | 47 gal |
| Console headroom | 6' 1" |
| Bridge clearance to T-top (approx) | 8' 5" |
| Maximum horsepower | 1,200 hp |
| Published engine packages | Twin Yamaha 450 XTO; triple Mercury 400 V10 |
| Top speed (twin Yamaha 450s) | 62.1 mph at 6,100 rpm |
| Top speed (triple Mercury 400 V10s) | 72.2 mph at 6,412 rpm |
| Estimated range (Scout, twin 450s with Seakeeper) | 385 miles |
| Certification | NMMA Certified / Yacht Certified |
Where it sits against the alternatives
At 35 feet 3 inches with a 10-foot-9 beam, the 357 LXF lines up against the Boston Whaler 360 Outrage, the Grady-White 345 Freedom and the Pursuit S 358. Each of those makes a different argument — the Whaler on unsinkable construction and offshore reputation, the Grady on the dual-console-style family compromise, the Pursuit on finish and helm ergonomics. Scout's argument is the laminate and the stepped bottom, and the performance bulletins are how you check whether that argument is worth the difference to you.
What Scout does not publish
Worth knowing before you shop: Scout does not publish a dry weight with engines fitted for the 357, and does not publish a recommended cruising horsepower. If rigged weight matters for your lift or your trailer, get the figure in writing for your exact configuration rather than working from the 10,120-pound dry number.
Talk it through
If you are weighing the twin-450 boat against the triple-400 boat, that is a conversation worth having with someone who has watched both configurations get ordered and delivered. Email TS@MintedYachts.com or call +1 (404) 805-9819 and we will walk through which one fits the way you actually run.