Boat test for the 2005 Post 53 Convertible with boat pictures, boat specifications, and boat test results. Includes pricing, videos, engine test reviews, and ratings for the 2005 Post 53 Convertible.

Entering Black Pearl Marine's Marco Island, Florida, office, I knew straight away I was dealing with serious anglers. Although he's a salesman, Capt. Steve Sprigg was simultaneously tinkering with a half-dozen grapefruit-size Shimano Tiagra 80-pound reels and poring over the contents of a morning shipment of fishing miscellany. Marc Brunsvold, company president and founder, answered e-mails and fielded calls surrounded by a still-in-the-box pair of Rupp outriggers and a new custom-made fighting chair. It seems they were doing some early-morning prep for that weekend's Gulf Coast marlin tourney. And if that wasn't enough, PMY senior editor and hardcore fisherman Capt. Patrick Sciacca and the rest of the crew were heartily lying to one another about fish they'd landed over the years while I checked on my test equipment in anticipation of that morning's sea trial.

Little surprise this happened in a Post dealership. The New Jersey-based builder has a reputation for building not only a serious battlewagon but also a comfortable, capable semicustom sportfisherman with more than its share of repeat buyers. It's also known for soliciting feedback from its owners, most of whom have been asking for a model between the 50- and 56-footers for several years. Thus, the 53 Convertible was born.

Hull No. 3 was fueled up and waiting for us dockside. My initial reaction when I saw her was, "She looks fast." A sharp entry and moderately raked forward section gave the 53 the illusion of movement when she's standing still. While Sprigg and Brunsvold finished in the office, I explored the engine room, which is accessible through a port-side hatch in the forward part of the cockpit. On my way down the stainless steel ladder, I found five tackle/tool drawers to port, within reach from the either the cockpit or below. Headroom in the engine room itself is 4'9", forcing me at 5'11" to crouch. Our test boat's 1,200-hp common-rail MTU 8V 2000s were bolted into six-inch-thick engine beds of fiberglass-encapsulated mahogany and were serviceable on all sides. A 3'4"-wide space between the big blocks provides adequate real estate for two mechanics and their tools. Racors and dipsticks are inboard for simple inspection, and the fiberglass battery boxes, each containing six batteries, are in a nearly two-foot-wide space between the engines and the bulkhead. A 12-inch fan on the forward bulkhead cooled me off on this muggy, 84ºF morning. But as impressed as I was by the layout here, I was also baffled by the placement of the Onan genset: to starboard on the aft bulkhead. Its power controls are outside the engine room, but to read its digital display—showing A.C. voltage and frequency, coolant temperature, oil pressure, battery voltage, and hours—you have to crawl all the way between engine and genset.

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