New Member looking for boat advice

[mabo19]

Hello everyone. I just joined this forum and am considering buying a boat. I have never owned one and my boating experience is limited to occasional fishing outings on my friends fathers boat as well as some tubing and knee-boarding on that same boat.

I have spent countless hours on this site looking everything up from prop types to full boat restorations. Now I'm not looking to restore a boat, but I like to know what I'm getting into and what problems I might encounter. It seems like owning a boat is doable in my situation, however storage may be a problem as I am 23, living at home, and my father wouldn't approve of a boat in his garage all winter. I would probably just dock it in the summer and wrap it up in the winter at a storage facility or somewhere along those lines.

In my searches for a boat, I have found many older models ranging from 14ft-19ft, everything from starcrafts to aristocrafts, Vee hulls to tri-hulls and they are all local boats in a range of approx. $1000-$3000. I would prefer a smaller boat suitable for fishing and pulling a tube or wakeboard. I don't know why but I love the style of the tri-hulls i have found, though many of you on this forum speak against it in choppy waters, which may or may not be a problem for me here in Windsor, ON (I really don't have enough boating experience to say for sure, is it that choppy here??). My brothers were thinking of pitching in so that we may get a larger and newer boat, but I will approach this as if I am buying one alone. I prefer the smaller and more compact boats anyway.

But on to my questions. I will list them as I do have a few:

1. What are the average maintenance costs for owning a boat?

2. What would you suggest as a starter boat in terms of size, style, cost?

3. Would you recommend someone my age in my position to buy a boat or would you wait until you moved out and got situated first?

4. What is your recommendation for engine HP considering the activities I wish to do with a boat of length 15ft, 17ft, 19ft, etc?

5. Is it worth it to pay docking fees or just house the boat somewhere and launch out of a free harbor (Asking to those who have had this experience)?

6. Do you recommend an outboard motor or the ones built into the boat?

7. Is it just me or do boat depreciate extremely fast?


Thanks for your replies and sorry if this is a long read. I tend to research a lot before making any big decisions. My younger brother bought a boat with his 4 friends last summer and it sank! But he's the irresponsible one, I would of got a surveyor out there first.

Also, here are some prospects (1, 2, 3, 4)

Thanks,
Matt

 

[foodfisher]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Give Dad anytime access to the boat. He may come around.

 

[Steve Mahler]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

2 and 4 are stand out beyond the others. the first boat looks nice but that motor is 50yrs old and a gas hog if running. the aristocrat is OLD for an IO. if a mechanic surveys the boat, you should be in good shape.

 

[mabo19]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

To foodfisher, I could do that, but he's have to move his vette out of the garage, which is a no no.

To Steve Mahler, do you have any suggestions for 2 and 4 then? And should I even bother with the old motors? Also, are surveyors also boat mechanics or would I need someone else to check that out?

 

[Shife]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

To foodfisher, I could do that, but he's have to move his vette out of the garage, which is a no no.

To Steve Mahler, do you have any suggestions for 2 and 4 then? And should I even bother with the old motors? Also, are surveyors also boat mechanics or would I need someone else to check that out?

Your average boat mechanic is not even close to a marine surveyor. Your typical marine surveyor will however know his way around the mechanics of a boat far better than most boat mechanics. He will also have a sound understanding of naval architecture, composite materials engineering, and a ton of other skills.

Above all you need to find someone knowledgeable and honest. for the type of boat you are looking for a full blown marine surveyor with a NA or engineering background is overkill and may be more money than the price of the boat warrants. The flip side is that "Bob the outboard dude" may not have a clue about anything other than changing the impeller and might be a total waste of your money.

Look for a surveyor first. Typically their rates will reflect the size/number of systems of the boat. If he/she is too much coin ask if they can recommend someone who is skilled at small boats that fits your price range. The warning here is that if you can't afford a survey you most likely can't afford the boat.

In this price range a surveyor is probably going to give you what sounds like bad news. Lots of stuff is going to be wrong. It is then up to you to size up your skill, create a budget, and decide if you want to take on the fun/challenge/torture of used boat ownership. If you're handy with tools and don't mind a project you can skip the pro inspection and roll the dice. That can be a fun part of boat ownership if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[mabo19]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Shife, thanks for the advice. I will start looking for surveyors in the area to get an idea of cost. I don't mind getting my hands dirty at all and I love taking things apart and putting them back together. I went through almost every restoration on this site and I would be able to do it I think, except on fiberglass, I'd have to look that up a little more.

But is it really that hard to find a decent cheaper boat, or should I just go in expecting everything to be bad for a boat in that price range?

 

[Shife]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Shife, thanks for the advice. I will start looking for surveyors in the area to get an idea of cost. I don't mind getting my hands dirty at all and I love taking things apart and putting them back together. I went through almost every restoration on this site and I would be able to do it I think, except on fiberglass, I'd have to look that up a little more.

But is it really that hard to find a decent cheaper boat, or should I just go in expecting everything to be bad for a boat in that price range?

These boats just weren't designed to last this long. Mass produced production boats are pretty much built as a disposable commodity. Finding a used boat that doesn't have rot is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Even if the floor isn't soft, you can pretty much bet the transom, stringers, and deck have water saturation somewhere. The costs involved with sealing all coring and isolating fastener points is simply beyond the realistic ability of most manufacturers. The resulting cost of a boat built to last longer than 10yrs pretty much falls to the high end boutique builders. Usually small volume custom build type manufacturers. This pretty much applies to all sizes and types of boats. There is little difference between a low end Bayliner and more expensive Sea Ray apart from the bolted on goodies. For your average runabout the price difference and corresponding "reputation" is decided by the nuts/bolts/gizmos attached to the same basic hull construction. The marketing departments do a great job of mudding the waters, but for the most part they are all the same basic bucket filled with varying quality parts.

 

[convergent]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Your post brings back some memories for me. I was in your situation many years ago. I am 47 now, but when I was your age I was still living at home and wanted to buy a 17' bowrider boat to do some skiing. I was going to borrow the money to buy it and my Dad at the time (who I still owed some money too) made me a deal to forgive my debts if I didn't buy the boat then. So I took his deal. I couple years later when I had moved out into a townhouse and had a good job, I bought a new boat. It was a bit of a pain because I had one parking spot and it had my boat in it, which was not fun to get in and out, was a bit of an eye sore, and I ended up not using it that often. Eventually I sold it. A couple of weeks ago I just bought my second boat and am loving it. I only tell you this story, because I think that you should really work out the "where am I going to keep it" part of this before diving too far into it. The farther you will have to tow it to get it in the water, the less you'll probably use it. You didn't mention what you are driving, but that was also a problem for me back then.. my car would tow the boat, but it wasn't really the best situation and I ended up getting a different car too (SUV).

Another thing to consider... mentioning going in with a few others to buy it... my brother-in-law did that years ago. It turned out to be a constant problem for him. No one thought about the fact that the weekends they would want to use it, so would everyone else. If you do decide to buy it together, you need to figure out how you will determine a calendar of "who gets first dibs" before you go into that. Otherwise when Memorial Day rolls around and 3 of you assume you are using it for 3 different purposes, it will be a big issue and then after a while someone may decide they aren't using it enough to justify the cost.

As far as what type of boat to get, I just bought the boat in my signature and it would probably do you well. It is small enough to be easy to tow, launch, etc... but does fine with tubing and is setup like a bassboat for fishing. I don't know how well it would do in a huge body of water like a bay or the ocean... kind of small for that. The lakes around here aren't huge.

The one thing about the boat I bought was that I spent a bit of time talking to the seller... we went out in it twice for quite a while, and we talked enough that I got comfortable with his level of care of the boat. I also talked to his mechanic. All of that got me a lot of information and I'm sure if I wanted him to, he'd go out with me to show me some things further if I needed it. I read on here all the time people posting questions about the boat they just bought and I'm wondering why they don't have the seller tell them this stuff? Like, "how do I start my boat?" literally. If you've not owned a boat before, finding a seller that is willing to help you learn the ropes the first few times out... that is worth something.

On the maintenance cost side, I think boats can cost some money over time. Even the boat I bought new, still had things go wrong. The boat I just bought, the seller had just spent $900 on an oil pump and some other stuff, and he spent another $200 on a prop before I bought it. Boat stuff is just expensive, so the more you can learn how to do, the better.... but you will also probably want to pay someone in the beginning to do maintenance. The mechanic that had been maintaining the boat I bought said he charges about $350 to do annual maintenance, not including anything that he might find that is needing to be replaced.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Buy the Starcraft

Seriously though, welcome to iboats! You made a VERY smart move by coming here before buying a boat and we'd love to have you hang around after you find one.

(Buy the Starcraft)

 

[jonesg]

Re: New Member looking for boat advice

Ditto on the starcraft, easy to fix and hold their value better than anything else on water. Have someone who REALLY knows boats check it, someone who has restored a rotted out hull in the past will know what to look for.

Funny ads though, none of them advertize the important things such as the condition of stringers, transom and deck, its all about the stereo's.
They read like car salesmen wrote the ad copy.

I consider the glass boats you listed as junk unless PROVEN otherwise.
They'd have to demonstrate the new transom.
As far as I'm concerned anything from the 70's is rotted unless you buy it from a museum. If you're going to end up with a project boat then it makes sense to buy a boat advertised as a project or snag one free.
Type free boat into craigslist, try the boston area, lots and lots of them.