Hurricane virtually created the deck boat market, and the Hurricane SunDeck SD 2486 OB is produced under the Nautic Global umbrella in Hurricane’s Elkhart, IN, factory. Launched at the Miami International Boat Show in February, the SunDeck SD 2486 OB joins the company’s diverse lineup of deck boats, and shimmies in between the company’s 22-foot version and theSunDeck 2690 OBmodel. It’s sister, the SunDeck 2400 OB, is virtually identical in appearance, but has a different layout—with a capacity of 12 people versus the 2486 OB’s 14—and less boxes to check on the options list. By the way, “OB” stands for outboard; some models are available with in an inboard/outboard configuration, but the SunDeck 2486 is currently only available with an outboard.

The first thing I noticed about the 2486 OB was its extremely clever and versatile deck layout. And it should be; it’s a deck boat, after all. All the way forward on the bow is a pullout ladder that stows away under a hatch. This is an excellent feature for beaching the boat bow-in and negates a long and possibly painful jump down to the shoreline. There’s also a large anchor locker up here. Access to the mini foredeck is up a convertible “step” that can be flipped up and back—much like a Transformer—to form an upholstered extension to the U-shaped seating area in the bow, where a drop-in table can be mounted. Another convertible seat is situated at the stern. This one forms a transom walk-through, and when it’s up it’s a fully upholstered seat.