You are at the dock by eight with a cooler and two kids already arguing about who gets the bow seat. By noon you are anchored forty miles out, grilling lunch. By nine you are still there — because you can be. That last part is what separates the Sea Ray Sundancer 320 from most boats its size.
It is a bowrider forward and a weekender below, and it does not make you choose.
Who It's For
This suits the family that has outgrown the 26-footer but has no interest in the slip fees and complexity of a 40-footer. You want overnighting capability without giving up the open-air space that made boating fun in the first place.
It works for the couple who want long weekends without hiring a captain, and for the family that genuinely needs four berths, a head with a shower, and enough cockpit to keep kids occupied for eight hours.
It does not work as a liveaboard. The 32-gallon water capacity and 27-gallon holding tank make the mission clear: weekends and long days, not weeks.
Design & Layout
The cockpit feels a size larger than the hull suggests. A wet bar with an optional grill sits to starboard, a cockpit refrigerator handles the rest, and the cockpit table converts to a sun pad. Seating wraps the transom.
The bow is where the boat separates itself from traditional cruisers. Actuated headrests and armrests — powered, adjustable, and comfortable underway rather than just at anchor — plus filler cushions that turn the whole forward section into a lounge. That is bowrider seating on a boat with a real cabin, and it is uncommon in this size class.
Below, the layout is straightforward and Sea Ray rates it at sleeps four: a V-berth with seating around a solid wood table that converts to a berth, and mid-berth bunks aft for two more. There is an enclosed head and a galley with microwave and refrigerator. It is functional rather than expansive, which is the correct answer at 32 feet.
The coupe option adds a fiberglass hardtop with a full windshield and opening side vent windows, available with a retracting canvas sunroof so it does not close the boat in. In Florida or the Bahamas it earns its money. On a northern lake, think about it harder.
The swim platform carries a stainless four-step ladder, with an automated submersible step on the option list.
Performance
Standard power is twin Mercury MerCruiser 6.2L MPI ECT engines on Bravo Three X drives with Joystick Piloting — 300 hp a side. Options run to 350 hp per side, with SeaCore closed cooling available on both. Dynamic Running Surface is optional: Sea Ray's system for automatically adjusting the boat's pitch and roll, which cuts bow rise on acceleration and lets you set presets.
Sea Ray publishes no speed figure and no range figure for the Sundancer 320. The specification block gives length, beam, fuel, propulsion, draft trimmed down and up, dry weight, deadrise, water capacity, holding tank and a "Sleeps: Four" row — and stops. There is no cruising speed, no wide-open throttle band and no range.
That is worth stating plainly because this page used to carry estimates, and other pages still do. They are not the builder's numbers. We have removed ours.
What Sea Ray does publish is a 21-degree deadrise on a 14,000-pound hull, and that pairing is the useful figure. It is why the boat handles a chop across an open bay better than a lot of 32-footers, which matters when your crew includes somebody who gets seasick.
On the sea trial: hold the speed you would actually cruise at, read the fuel burn off the Mercury display, divide 158 gallons by it and keep a 10 percent reserve. That gives you a range figure grounded in your boat, your load and your water — which is better than any number printed anywhere.
Ownership
The Sundancer 320 is owner-operated in the fullest sense. No captain to schedule, no crew, nothing standing between you and a Tuesday morning departure.
MerCruiser is the most widely serviced sterndrive platform in North America, which means parts availability and mechanics who know the systems. The sterndrive maintenance items — bellows, gimbal bearings, drive service — are real and annual, and in salt water the SeaCore option deserves serious thought.
Coverage is Sea Ray's three-year SENTIN3L bow-to-stern warranty, plus a 10-year Limited Structural Hull/Deck warranty to the original owner. Note that this is the shorter of Sea Ray's two schemes — the SLX sport boats get five years — because Sea Ray files Sundancers as sport cruisers.
Where to Start
Look at a coupe and an open version on the same day, in the weather you actually boat in. It is the single decision that changes this boat most.
Then go below with the whole family and sit in the mid-berth. Four berths on a 32-footer is a real claim, but only you can judge whether your four fit.
Talk it through with us: TS@MintedYachts.com, +1 (404) 805-9819, or the form on this page.