Boat brand

[mdsjohna]

I have never had a boat before and me and my girlfriend are thinking of getting one. I have researched a fair amount but figured I would get some forum input which I hadn't really done yet. I read through these forums a fair amount but I wanted some more input.

I have a 2008 Suzuki Grand Vitara v6 4x4. It is rated to tow up too 3000 pounds braked. Being that I never trailer before, and want to be safe I am having a hard time figuring out what boat we should be looking at. We want to do a little bit of fishing but it's not the main concern. Running around a little, wakeboading or just going for a cruise will be it's main use. So a bowrider type boat is probably going to be the best from what I can see. Problem is many of them that I seem to find are around 2100 lb dry, some sites mention that's dry with trailer but some don't. These are usually have a 3 L inboard. I am a little nervous getting something quite that heavy being that its the first boat and being that I have never pulled a trailer before. I also don't want a tiny little thing that will flip over at every little wave. We will be on a river and on a lake that is quite open and does have small craft warnings from time to time. I don't really care if it is aluminum, though it seems all aluminum are fishing boats which we don't want. Does anyone know of a boat that sounds like it will fit what I am looking for? Any brand suggestions? Or maybe I am off track on the type of boat we are looking at?

 

[JimKW]

Re: Boat brand

I was recently in the a very similar situation. I have three older vehicles and the Volvo V70 wagon I had was rated at 3300 lbs towing capacity. I owned a boat about 20 years ago and did not like the fact that it was fairly heavy with only 170 HP which was underpowered.

I started looking at boats that went about 2000 lbs and with a trailer would probably be 2500-2800. I went and looked at several boat ramps and there is no way my Volvo was going to pull 2800 lbs out of the water and up those ramps. So I sold the Volvo for $3600 and bought a decent GMC Envoy rated at 5000 lbls for $3500.

Then I bought the boat I really wanted. The Crownline I bought goes about 2800 lbs and I figure 800 lbls for the trailer for a total of around 3600 lbls. The Envoy pulls it great and I can go 50+ mph on the lake with my red boat. I am soooo glad I did not buy a small 130HP boat. I had 8 adults and three small children (under 3 yrs old) on board the other day and it ran fine.

I have no idea what a Suziki Grand Vitara is, but you may want to look into what it will really do. But if it is rated at 3000 lbs I would be very reluctant to tow more than 2500. Something rated at 3000 lbs is not really a vehicle made for towing even though it does have 4WD. Personally I don't care for the Aluminum boats.