Rambo 27, What to Know Before Buying One of the Rambo Boats for Sale

Rambo boats for sale, and the two different Rambos

Search for Rambo boats for sale and you will find two unrelated things. The first is Rambo Boats, a small builder at 1217 Middleground Church Road in Eastman, Georgia, whose website shows one boat, the Rambo 27 center console open sport fisherman. The second is Rambo Marine, a dealer group with stores in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and in Alabama at Smith Lake, Huntsville and Birmingham, which sells other builders' new and pre-owned boats. If you are looking for the Rambo 27, you want the first.

This page covers the Rambo 27. It is a niche boat with very little published data, so we stick to what the builder states and explain what those numbers mean for a buyer. Where we could not verify something, such as weight, fuel capacity or maximum horsepower, we say so rather than guess.

A one-model shop in Eastman, Georgia

Rambo Boats operates on a scale that most buyers never encounter. Its website, a single page last updated with a 2014 to 2025 copyright, names the boat, lists its dimensions and standard features, and gives a phone number and opening hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The site's author tag is Lou Rambo, and a 2011 archived version of the page listed both Lou and Shari Rambo as contacts under the tagline Built by a Fisherman for Fishermen.

The shop also builds fiberglass boarding step boxes in three sizes, priced from $379 to $399. That side business says something about the operation: this is a hand-layup fiberglass shop rather than a production plant, and each 27 is effectively a semi-custom build. The 2011 page offered custom colors, two console styles and custom rigging, which fits that picture.

Reading 27 feet 6 inches by 8 feet

The builder's specifications are short: an overall length of 27 feet 6 inches, a beam of 8 feet and a draft of 14 inches. Those three numbers still say a lot. A length-to-beam ratio of about 3.4 to 1 is long and slender by modern center console standards, where 27-footers commonly run 9 feet or more in beam. Narrow hulls of this type tend to be efficient and easy to push with a single engine, and they slice through a chop rather than riding over it.

The trade-offs are predictable. An 8-foot beam gives less deck space than a modern beamy console and generally more roll when drifting or at anchor. On the plus side, it is well inside the 8-foot 6-inch width that most states allow on the road without a wide-load permit, and the builder's own photo shows a 27 on a tandem-axle trailer.

The 14-inch draft figure is for the hull, and in practice the outboard's lower unit sets how shallow you can actually run. That is still a useful number for owners working skinny inlets, creeks and flats edges along the Southeast coast.

Standard features and the option list

Today's standard list is brief: 100 percent hand-laid fiberglass, a non-skid deck, a heavy-duty vinyl rub rail, a self-bailing cockpit, a rope locker door, a towing eye, an automatic bilge pump, trim tabs, and five cleats with four hawse pipes. The 2011 version of the page added a large walk-in center console, a console instrument box with Plexiglas door, a natural livewell, a large fish box with drain, four aluminum rod holders and a bow light.

The 2011 option list gives a sense of how boats were finished: a custom fiberglass T-top ($2,395), a rocket launcher leaning post ($1,495), a 20-gallon freshwater tank with pump ($895), a bow rail ($995), T-top outriggers ($1,295), full flotation ($795) and twin fuel tanks ($995). Expect used boats to vary widely depending on which of these were chosen.

• Hand-laid fiberglass hull and self-bailing cockpit
• Natural livewell and drained fish box (2011 list)
• Walk-in center console
• Options included T-top, outriggers, full flotation and twin fuel tanks

Single-outboard power and what to ask

Rambo does not publish an engine package. The builder's photos show single-outboard boats, one with a Yamaha 300 four-stroke and another with a Mercury OptiMax, which suggests a typical rig of one large outboard on the transom. A slender 27-footer of this kind should be economical on a single engine, but we found no published speed or fuel tests, so we do not quote numbers.

When you look at a used Rambo 27, find the capacity plate and confirm that the installed engine is within the rated maximum horsepower. Ask who rigged it, whether the boat has full flotation, and whether it has one or two fuel tanks, since both were options.

Price then and now

The listed price has more than doubled over the past 15 years, from $18,900 on the 2011 page to $41,000 today. Neither list includes an outboard, trailer or electronics, so they are best understood as prices for the boat before power. A finished boat with a new single 250 to 300 hp outboard, T-top, electronics and trailer is likely to land roughly between $80,000 and $115,000, depending on choices and current engine prices.

Used Rambo 27s are rare on the big listing sites, and values follow the engine. A boat with a recent four-stroke and a good trailer is worth far more than one with an old two-stroke. Our estimate is roughly $25,000 to $75,000 in 2026, with the caveat that a thin market makes any single sale an outlier.

Buying a small-builder boat safely

Small builders can produce excellent boats, but they leave a thinner paper trail than the big brands. Hire a surveyor who will sound the deck and transom, check the hull identification number against the title, inspect how the console and T-top are fastened, and look at the quality of the rigging and wiring. Ask the seller for build documentation and any correspondence with the builder.

Because the shop is still operating, you can also call Rambo Boats directly with the hull number and ask about the boat's original specification. That is an advantage many owners of orphaned brands do not have. Annual ownership costs for a trailered single-engine 27 are modest, roughly $4,000 to $9,000 for insurance, engine service, trailer upkeep and storage before fuel.