Thinking About a Boat

Henning said:
Meh, not particularly, and it sounds like it has an Outdrive not a jet. Kids and props give me the willies.
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The guy owns a plane, with two GIANT props on it. I would not presume that he can't handle a prop boat. I like jets too, but I can do better than that.

http://rapidcity.craigslist.org/boa/4593806364.html

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/boa/4622586788.html

Also, the BB jet boats drink fuel. Prolly double the consumption of a SBC with an Alpha for the same fun.
 
I couldn't force myself to read the previous 83 posts, so I apologize if this has been discussed. Some marinas have enclosed storage. You mentioned space for a 20 foot boat in your yard. We went half with our neighbors on a boat. We pay ~150/month to store a 26ft pontoon boat on a local lake.

Downside is 150/month. Upside is that it's kept out of the elements when it's not in use. They drop it in the lake for us anytime we go up there.
 
I have a small fishing boat with a 15 hp motor. This is the time of year one can almost name their price as a buyer with a used boat. I've had fun a few times on jet skis over the years, never felt the need to buy one though.
 
docmirror said:
The guy owns a plane, with two GIANT props on it. I would not presume that he can't handle a prop boat. I like jets too, but I can do better than that.

http://rapidcity.craigslist.org/boa/4593806364.html

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/boa/4622586788.html

Also, the BB jet boats drink fuel. Prolly double the consumption of a SBC with an Alpha for the same fun.
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Kids don't swim around and stand on props of planes. Horsepower = fuel, BB or SB. Usually a BB making tha same power as the SB will use a bit less fuel. Yes, jets eat 15%more fuel than a direct drive, about 12% more than an out drive. That is what one has to decide if it is worth the cost of getting rid of the prop and leg.
 
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Henning said:
Kids don't swim around and stand on props of planes. Horsepower = fuel, BB or SB. Usually a BB making tha same power as the SB will use a bit less fuel. Yes, jets eat 15%more fuel than a direct drive, about 12% more than an out drive. That is what one has to decide if it is worth the cost of getting rid of the prop and leg.
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Having owned fleets of both jet and prop, your numbers are way, way off. BBC with a Berkeley A pump will use more than double a 350 Merc with a Alpha and a SS prop. You can replace the wear ring, get a B impeller, polish the intake, remove the grate, and you will still use double the fuel to move the same boat.

Kids in water = engine off, key is removed and stuffed in moms purse, purse is in cuddy under seat.

Really, people do this thousands of times per day, every day of every summer. I've been around prop boats since I was a little kid, I've never, ever seen a prop strike. Sure, it happens, but when it does, it's so rare it makes the news.

Now, go ahead and get the last word in. I promise you will prevail because it's just not that important to me to mention it again.
 
So this gets into another point. My assumption is we're coming up on the best time to buy a boat, given that our storage is "free", similar to motorcycles and other summer equipment. Is that true? Ie if we want a boat next summer, should we be looking now?
 
Ted DuPuis said:
So this gets into another point. My assumption is we're coming up on the best time to buy a boat, given that our storage is "free", similar to motorcycles and other summer equipment. Is that true? Ie if we want a boat next summer, should we be looking now?
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Things go down hill price wise from here to late winter. Often times the real deal pops up after the first snow. Guys wife wants her garage space back for her precious car.

Spring and early summer are a bad time to buy.
 
My thought is if we buy something between now and Labor Day, we might get a couple uses in before winter as sort of a shakedown use, get an idea of squawks to work on before going out next summer. But I can also imagine prices dropping further between now and Christmas.
 
I had a 21' Sea Ray center console with a 150 hp Merc outboard. Used it for fishing the Chesapeake Bay mostly. Nice high freeboard to keep the chop out and little people in, big Ol' Bimini top for shade. Room to spread out. Made a good swimming platform too. Built like a brick craphouse, rode well up on plane. If you're just thinking day pleasure stuff, something like that may be worth a look.
 
In your price range, there is really no good or bad time to buy a boat. Pretty much everything under $9k is fully or nearly fully depreciated. At this point, it just comes down to how bad they want to sell. The worst time is spring. Everyone has grand plans to get out just one more year, or fix that old thing back up and motor down to the dam.

Get on searchtempest, and iboats, and boats.com, and boattrader and see what you find. One of the things you'll need to check out carefully in your price range is the stiffness of the transom. They can get leaks and the wood inside will get punky and soft, requiring a lot of rework. It's important to know the transom is solid. A boat mechanic can check it for you before you buy, or you can look it up and get a fair idea on your own.

I'd sell you my Excel but it's 7 feet too long, and $10k too much. Good hunting.
 
When you are looking at boats, do consider how much effort it will be to put the boat on the trailer at the end of the day. If it's just you and the missus, you may want to look at a 19 or 20 foot bowrider, and not much more.
 
FormerHangie said:
When you are looking at boats, do consider how much effort it will be to put the boat on the trailer at the end of the day. If it's just you and the missus, you may want to look at a 19 or 20 foot bowrider, and not much more.
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Spent my youth hanging at the boat ramp down the block from my house. Watching families fight while launching boats was always entertaining.
 
The boat you want all depends on your mission. I'm not sure what you can get for 5k in Ohio in the 20ft range. I run a 25ft hydra sport with twin 200hp evinrudes for fishing which I also use sometimes for the sandbar. I also have the strictly party/sandbar boat which is is a 33ft Advance with triple 300hp merc's. The fishing boat is your regular fiberglass production boat and the Advance is a carbon composite that was blue printed for speed. When I'm at the sandbar and I have people around the motors I raise the props out of the water and throw the prop covers on so no one gets cut.
 

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If you will be having people around the prop's.
 

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Bill Jennings said:
One of the guys at the club has a Melges E-scow. On a good wind day, I'm first in line to crew on that bad boy. The power boat guys drop their jaws when that thing gets up on plane. It is an "E" ticket ride!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwSyOmYyMsY

At about 0:40 she steps up on plane and starts to go.
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I have always wanted to sail an E Scow! Awesome boats. I hear they are popular up on some of the great lakes.
 
Ted,

I noted your budget is less than 10k. Congrats we are in the 'same boat'

I just bought a nice 24' Albemarle that I can get in excellent shape and have a total sub 10k budget. This is for a 30-60 mile offshore Carolina inlet running boat. including trailer.

You are probably looking for an I/O trailer boat. most of them use 5.7 sbc parts and are super cheap to fix/repower. I have done a crap load of research on these engines/drives lately because I just bought one. text or PM me if you have any questions. Big deal on IO's is you must haul them yearly even in freshwater and take care of some good cleaning, painting and maintenance. I know you can handle it. My boat has a late 80's duo prop volvo drive. They are expensive used, but there is good reason. Only improper maintenance kills em, otherwise they are super reliable and efficient!

I used to own a 12,000lb classic Pearson sailboat. Won't do that again till my vacation benefits match up with sailing. I grew up sailing and taking summer vacation on my parents boat but ya need 2 weeks PLUS off every summer to enjoy a good sailboat.

If i had the time, I would buy another sailboat. You might appreciate it
 
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Kids in water - engine off, unless under a tow, in which case both the spotter and the helm need to keep their eyes in the game. You've really got to not be paying attention for it to become a problem. I spent tons of hours swimming around power boats as a kid. We were aware of the hazard, but not overly paranoid about it.

The b!tch with props is picking up debris and getting ropes wrapped around them. If you're operating on a river with commercial traffic it can be a headache. We wrapped tugboat lines around our prop in Raritan Bay (NJ) more than once.
 
I am kind of in your shoes. One kid at 4.5 years old and twins at 2.5 years old. Our 19 foot Bayliner open bow does a great job. We pull the oldest with another family member till lunch, feed the kids and hope they fall asleep so we can play with the Sea Doo's. Before kids we left the boat and Skiis at the lake and flew the plane there for the weekend.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
So this gets into another point. My assumption is we're coming up on the best time to buy a boat, given that our storage is "free", similar to motorcycles and other summer equipment. Is that true? Ie if we want a boat next summer, should we be looking now?
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Start looking now, it really doesn't matter though. A few more boats will come on the market after Labor Day typically and a few come off the market around Memorial Day, but you don't really see a big fluctuation in price or availability.
 
Ted, you don't have to spend a lot of money. My wife paid $6k for her ebbtide. It was a former state patrol boat, so while it was 10 years old it had only 100 hrs on it and lived it's whole life under roof. I put another $1K into it fixing a few things and converting the engine to fuel injection so she could get it started easier.

When she spotted it, I told her I didn't think she really needed 300hp to pull a couple skiers. She said "I thought you said airplanes can't have too much power, what's the difference?" so who was I to argue ?

The comments about family time are spot on, and yes it can be quick trips. We keep the boat at the airport, 2 miles from the boat ramp at the river. It's very easy to grab the kids after school and spend a few hours skiing and tubing, and still get home before dark. Get an open-bow, you don't to to the lake to hide in a hole. Kids need room to move.

Start practicing now with your wife, backing up a trailer. If your wife can back down the ramp you can make the water-to-land transition in a few minutes. If she can drive the boat while you do the trailer, just as good. It's when one person has to do both boat and trailer that the ramp gets crowded and becomes the focal point of the day instead of having fun on the water.

Our youngest is a boat maniac. She says she has to go fast "so I can see over the front better". 2nd picture shows how she compares boating to flying.
 

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JHW said:
Ted, you don't have to spend a lot of money. My wife paid $6k for her ebbtide. It was a former state patrol boat, so while it was 10 years old it had only 100 hrs on it and lived it's whole life under roof. I put another $1K into it fixing a few things and converting the engine to fuel injection so she could get it started easier.

When she spotted it, I told her I didn't think she really needed 300hp to pull a couple skiers. She said "I thought you said airplanes can't have too much power, what's the difference?" so who was I to argue?

Our youngest is a boat maniac. She says she has to go fast "so I can see over the front better". 2nd picture shows how she compares boating to flying.
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You really can't have too much HP (within reason, getting way more than enough gets expensive and either unreliable or heavy), the faster you can get on the step the better for efficiency and then you can trim back the throttle to the same HP as the smaller engine and not really give anything up, actually a 454 is often more efficient than a 350 when you start pushing the 350 onto the torque downslope and need more RPM to make required horsepower. You want an engine that is comfortably within its upper torque band at the RPM required to make the horsepower required to maintain your typical operation. If your typical operation is high drag, ie getting the boat, and skiers/wake boarders up out of the water, especially wakeboard boats with the ballast tank to increase the wake/drag, having the big engine (and beefier drive) ends up saving you money in the long run.
 
docmirror said:
Kids in water = engine off, key is removed
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Works for me, works for everyone I boat with. ANYONE wants to go in the water, the engine is off. Just like swapping passengers in the plane. Full shutdown.

Picking up tubers that have fallen off is fine if you use your head. Normally the tube/board/whatever is on a long line off the stern. Stay 5 boat lengths from the person in the water and turn the boat to drag the line/tube towards the person. Not hard.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Works for me, works for everyone I boat with. ANYONE wants to go in the water, the engine is off. Just like swapping passengers in the plane. Full shutdown.

Picking up tubers that have fallen off is fine if you use your head. Normally the tube/board/whatever is on a long line off the stern. Stay 5 boat lengths from the person in the water and turn the boat to drag the line/tube towards the person. Not hard.
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Nope, not hard, yet still... Why?:dunno:
 
JHW said:
2nd picture shows how she compares boating to flying.
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I think our daughters would have a blast together at the lake. The kids really have a good time jumping off the boat/tubes and having a blast.

Lately we've been anchoring in a cove that has a very small island in it, swimming to the island and "exploring" is a favorite activity.
 
Henning said:
Personally having seen what I have seen over the years, if I wanted a family boat for fun and water sports, the only drive I would have is a jet pump, plus it opens up shallow sluices and river mouths for use.
.
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http://www.yamahaboats.com

I run a 240SX at our lake retreat. Love the power and the safety factor off the swim platform with the kids. No prop to hose up and shallow water isn't an issue. In four years I've never had to do anything to it but change oil. Could've paid cash for it, but they'll finance the damn things for 15 years @ 2%. I love me some OPM.
 

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James_Dean said:
http://www.yamahaboats.com

I run a 240SX at our lake retreat. Love the power and the safety factor off the swim platform with the kids. No prop to hose up and shallow water isn't an issue. In four years I've never had to do anything to it but change oil. Could've paid cash for it, but they'll finance the damn things for 15 years @ 2%. I love me some OPM.
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I really like the late model jet deck boats for running as the family tender. Typically we end up with a RIB version because it's like driving one big assed fender and you can have anyone drive it to shore and back without causing a bunch of damage docking up. All of this stuff is so expensive though. There are some older deck boats with outboards that take pumps on the leg. A 150 power head usually rates as 115 with a pump on the foot.
 
Bill Jennings said:
https://cincinnati.craigslist.org/boa/4610799757.html
https://cincinnati.craigslist.org/boa/4613860482.html
http://louisville.craigslist.org/boa/4574021514.html
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https://cincinnati.craigslist.org/boa/4613860482.html

This one is interesting, I always liked the Chapparel hulls and they were better than average in build finish and detail for production boats. The 170hp Mercruiser may be the 470, this is an interesting engine, it's basically half a 351 Windsor in a straight four. This is a great torqy sucker, we used to have a bit of an issue with going through couplers on a rental 25' houseboat with one, but it would go 27kts on it and wasn't exactly light. The engine itself nor drive gave any trouble though, it would just wear the aluminum spline in the coupler and pick up a vibration every 750hrs or so.
 
Thanks for the additional thoughts. We talked about it some more last night and are thinking we do want a cabin of some sort, at least for now. We've got a list of potentials on CL and are starting to look around. If we get something soon, we might get a couple uses before winter, which I'd like. Else we'll look for the right one. A big block is appealing to me, but I think any V8 would be fine, especially for a starter. I would like to get a use or two in before winter, so we don't show up next spring with a new boat, new babies, and no idea what we're doing.

The idea would be to get something that we'd like for a few years, and that will help get an idea of whether it's right or we want bigger/smaller. Current favorite from the ads is a 23' SeaRay with a 350. I would definitely see putting fuel injection on eventually for a lot of reasons.

Laurie can back up a trailer just fine, and can probably drive a boat better than me. So I don't see an issue with one-person loading/unloading.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I would definitely see putting fuel injection on eventually for a lot of reasons.
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Just a quick heads up. No matter how you end up, carb or FI, you must use pure gas in boats. Many boats, even ones with MPI, with have vapor lock and hot starting issues if you use gas with ethanol.
 
23 Sea Ray is a good boat that in recent times have used all engineered core foams. Earlier ones used wood which is susceptible to rotting. Find out which one this is. A moisture meter is a good investment here as is thumping with a nylon faced mallet. You'll know bad when you hear it, it sounds bad lol.

As for the 350 in a 23'er with a cabin, look at budgeting a a supercharger upgrade with the FI.;) you're gonna want it. If you want to do a different small block, use a 3-1/4 stroke crank in a 4-1/8 block with 6.3" rods and a 280° cam with some Vortec heads and Tri-y headers and a GM TPI system with a chip. That'll get you a nice flat torque of around 420ft lbs between 2400 & 4600 rpm.
 
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Bill Jennings said:
Just a quick heads up. No matter how you end up, carb or FI, you must use pure gas in boats. Many boats, even ones with MPI, with have vapor lock and hot starting issues if you use gas with ethanol.
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Thanks, that's good to know. I'm guessing it has to do with fuel tank and pump location?
 
the biggest problem with ethanol is fiberglass fuel tanks. When our one station runs out of no-alcohol premium, I've run 100LL in it. That is some expensive skiing.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Thanks, that's good to know. I'm guessing it has to do with fuel tank and pump location?
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And engines that are "tightly cowled" in the engine compartment. Unlike cars, they are not open to the air to cool well after shutdown. It gets hot down there! To further compound, most engines on bowriders and smaller boats are below the sunpad, which is foam cushion, and thus nicely insulates the engine compartment ensuring it stays hotter longer!

Also, having a water getter in the fuel in a constantly moist environment is not so good.
 
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