Happy wife. And a shotgun boat purchase

G

gotboostedvr6

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Aug 1, 2006
Messages
240
The admiral (and my 7 year old Autistic kid) will not set foot on my Grady White. It's "too fishy, smoky, not comfortable" . We also had an unfortunate experience on it involving a summer storm and us *almost* outrunning a bad storm. Calling gps coordinates to CG is serious pucker factor.... anyway I digress.

We've been home working for about 65 days (covid) now and have been without a family oriented boat for about a year. Out of nowhere the wife said she wants a nice boat, now.

I've narrowed my search down to two boutique, 2007, 25 foot pocket cruisers. They are both Azure Az259, They are absolutely top of the line for this style boat. I have no idea which I should choose as I never thought I'd own a IO boat with a car motor... yuck.

One has a 300hp 5.7 magnum and bravo 3 with 270 hours. It was a fresh water boat until 2017. In 18 and 19 it sat in a salt slip and was only used a total of 4 times. It's lack of use shows. Its been maintained by a dealer. When I went to look at it I found the zincs are almost gone. Mechanic said they replace the anodes during the spring prep. Outdrive shows some surface corrosion and 2" skeg chunk missing. Sinks, hardware and vinyl show minor corrosion and the early stages of UV deterioration. Bellows and gimbal were done recently. Manifolds and risers never touched. Bilge and engne are super clean.

Second boat is a bunk trailer queen and had only been in fresh. Never bottom painted. 249 hours. It has a 8.1 Gi 375hp with duo prop. Manifold and risers never touched. Bellows and gimbal new. I think its the better Volvo outdrive but I have no idea. Picture included. Based on pictures this boat is super clean. 5 hour drive I plan on making this week.

There only thing I know about Volvo drives stem from the composite nightmare. The drive on this boat seems to be aluminum.

Thoughts on each?
 
Last edited:
briangcc

briangcc

Commander
Joined
Jul 10, 2012
Messages
2,394
I've never heard anyone complain they wish they had a smaller/less powerful motor. Quite the opposite. The only potential gotcha with a Volvo is whether there is a reputable dealer that is willing & able to service it. They seem to be drying up near me and where I boat so I unfortunately had to switch to Merc power.

Having had both, the Volvo is hands down smoother shifting in/out of gear and we won't get into the archaic shift interrupter Merc uses to accomplish the same feat. Volvo parts however are easily, very easily 3-4x that of the comparable Merc part so something to be aware of as well.
 
C

CaptainSteveo

Seaman
Joined
May 1, 2020
Messages
61
gotboostedvr6 said:
The admiral (and my 7 year old Autistic kid) will not set foot on my Grady White. It's "too fishy, smoky, not comfortable" . We also had an unfortunate experience on it involving a summer storm and us *almost* outrunning a bad storm. Calling gps coordinates to CG is serious pucker factor.... anyway I digress.

We've been home working for about 65 days (covid) now and have been without a family oriented boat for about a year. Out of nowhere the wife said she wants a nice boat, now.

I've narrowed my search down to two boutique, 2007, 25 foot pocket cruisers. They are both Azure Az259, They are absolutely top of the line for this style boat. I have no idea which I should choose as I never thought I'd own a IO boat with a car motor... yuck.

One has a 300hp 5.7 magnum and bravo 3 with 270 hours. It was a fresh water boat until 2017. In 18 and 19 it sat in a salt slip and was only used a total of 4 times. It's lack of use shows. Its been maintained by a dealer. When I went to look at it I found the zincs are almost gone. Mechanic said they replace the anodes during the spring prep. Outdrive shows some surface corrosion and 2" skeg chunk missing. Sinks, hardware and vinyl show minor corrosion and the early stages of UV deterioration. Bellows and gimbal were done recently. Manifolds and risers never touched. Bilge and engne are super clean.

Second boat is a bunk trailer queen and had only been in fresh. Never bottom painted. 249 hours. It has a 8.1 Gi 375hp with duo prop. Manifold and risers never touched. Bellows and gimbal new. I think its the better Volvo outdrive but I have no idea. Picture included. Based on pictures this boat is super clean. 5 hour drive I plan on making this week.

There only thing I know about Volvo drives stem from the composite nightmare. The drive on this boat seems to be aluminum.

Thoughts on each?
Click to expand...

Personally I would run, not walk, away from an I/O that had sat in salt water that long with such little use. The skeg chunk and corrosion would make run away even faster. An I/O in saltwater needs to be babied and flushed to avoid diasaters with exahaust manifolds and such.

The second one sounds infinitely better to me.
 
cptbill

cptbill

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Oct 6, 2012
Messages
762
I have volvos on my Larson(2 DP-sm) and my personal feeling is that the volvos are easer to work on although finding reasonably priced parts can be a challenge. the drives are not hard to deal with but a saltwater boat that hasn't been pulled and cleaned might be a pain to deal with but wouldn't be terrible depending un price. On another note you may be quit surprised by the performance of that 5.7 I'll bet that boat gets across the water very nicely. But if there closely priced the fresh water boat might be better
 
Scott Danforth

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
Staff member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
50,224
out of those two, go with the volvo and 8.1 simply from the longevity factor.

sitting boats go to s#!t. boats sitting in bring simply go faster.
 
J

jonesg

Admiral
Joined
Feb 22, 2008
Messages
7,198
gotboostedvr6 said:
The admiral (and my 7 year old Autistic kid) will not set foot on my Grady White. It's "too fishy, smoky, not comfortable" . We also had an unfortunate experience on it involving a summer storm and us *almost* outrunning a bad storm. Calling gps coordinates to CG is serious pucker factor.... anyway I digress.

We've been home working for about 65 days (covid) now and have been without a family oriented boat for about a year. Out of nowhere the wife said she wants a nice boat, now.

I've narrowed my search down to two boutique, 2007, 25 foot pocket cruisers. They are both Azure Az259, They are absolutely top of the line for this style boat. I have no idea which I should choose as I never thought I'd own a IO boat with a car motor... yuck.

One has a 300hp 5.7 magnum and bravo 3 with 270 hours. It was a fresh water boat until 2017. In 18 and 19 it sat in a salt slip and was only used a total of 4 times. It's lack of use shows. Its been maintained by a dealer. When I went to look at it I found the zincs are almost gone. Mechanic said they replace the anodes during the spring prep. Outdrive shows some surface corrosion and 2" skeg chunk missing. Sinks, hardware and vinyl show minor corrosion and the early stages of UV deterioration. Bellows and gimbal were done recently. Manifolds and risers never touched. Bilge and engne are super clean.

Second boat is a bunk trailer queen and had only been in fresh. Never bottom painted. 249 hours. It has a 8.1 Gi 375hp with duo prop. Manifold and risers never touched. Bellows and gimbal new. I think its the better Volvo outdrive but I have no idea. Picture included. Based on pictures this boat is super clean. 5 hour drive I plan on making this week.

There only thing I know about Volvo drives stem from the composite nightmare. The drive on this boat seems to be aluminum.

Thoughts on each?
Click to expand...

Have you given any thought on making the grady more comforable, it DID get you home alive after all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top