Shopping for first boat,help please?

[jlgab345]

Hello!

My husband and I are shopping for our first boat and have so many questions.

We are most likely going to go used so we have time to get used to boating and ensure we get enough use out of it before possibly trading up in a few years.

A few things that are going to be important to us:

Skiing - I'm an intermediate skiier but my husband has never gotten out of the water and wants to. He tried behind my dad's 90 hp fish & ski boat. We have an idea that we need a 220hp motor or larger (with larger boat of course), but realistically, could an 18" bowrider with a 135 hp motor pull him out of the water easily. We'd like to start with the right amount of hp from the get-go.

Family & Friend friendly - I'd imagine 50% of the time, we'll go out with only our family (2 adults & 3 kids), but the other 50% we'll want to take people with us, from 2 people up to another family of 5 (2 adults & 3 kids). Can an 8 passenger boat realistically work for us?

Can I legally take that many people on a boat rated for 8 passengers if we are under the weight limit with gear? What are the laws (will be boating in IN mostly & some in KY or OH)?

Value - how do I check values on boats and ensure I'm not overpaying? I've heard the nada website is basically for banks and dealers to "undervalue" boats.

Thanks for now, I'm sure I'll have more questions later and I'd welcome any advice!

Juretta & Patrick

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

Putting 10 people in an 8-person boat is very likely to get you a ticket, and it won't be much fun, either. Space will be cramped and, well, that many kids is a handful in any boat.

Any boat you buy is going to be a compromise between all your desires for boating. There's no really good answer that solves all your problems, I'm afraid. Your best bet is to look at as many boats as you can, ride in them, if you can, then think some more.

Whatever you do, have any used boat you're considering surveyed by a professional, but wait on that until you're seriously considering a particular boat. Insist on an on-the-water trial, where you and the current owner can put the boat through all of its paces. Every boat handles differently and has different characteristics on the water. One may be fast, but have a harsh ride. Another may have a great ride, but be slow to get on plane.

Like most folks, you're looking for a do-it-all craft, and there aren't any of those. Somewhere, there will be compromises. Talk about them together until you come up with something satisfactory.

Enjoy the search!

 

[jlockhart26]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

Hi! And Congrats on the choice to buy!

First of all, buying a boat is a decision that ultimately should come from what you two want, not what anybody else recommends. If you have friends with different kinds of boats, go out and see what you like the best.

That being said, I'll give you my input based on what I use my boat for and why I like it.

I have 2001 19ft SeaRay bowrider. It has a 4.3l mercruiser alpha one. Seats 8 people. The 18-20ft boats are perfect for my use. Easy to transport, easy to maneuver, but large enough for people and cruising in rough water. We ski, tube, wakeboard, and hangout. I live in AZ, so there are a lot of lakes, and we spend at least 2 weeks a year at powell. My brother is 220lbs, and the boat pulls him out of the water on skis and wakeboard no problem. The nice thing about the 4.3l is that it makes nice power, but still gets good fuel mileage. Part of the performance is picking the right prop. I run a 4 blade stainless prop, at 17 pitch. This gives me a lot of power out of the hole. The 4.3 puts out about 200hp, and thats plenty for our purposes. The right prop makes all the difference

SeaRay makes a very nice boat, good quality. The laws for carrying people usually vary from state to state, but realistically, any more than 8 in our boat would be too crowded. The other thing to think about is not only the people, but the gear as well, ice chests, clothes, etc... I you will be normally carrying 5 or more adults, you may want a bigger boat. We normally have 6-7 adults, and its tight sometimes, but we make it work and the boat always runs strong, always planes out.

NADA is a good place to start, but overall know what you can spend, and just keep watching the market. I bought my boat from craigslist, and couldn't be happier. If you have 10-12k to spend, you can find a very nice boat for exactly what you need.

My advice, don't rush. if you take the time, you will find a boat that is perfect for you. This is a good time to buy...people need money, and the toys are usually first to go.

Good luck! something else to try is to look online for reviews of boats you are looking at. Read what others have said and experienced from the boats. And before you buy, ask the seller to take you on a lake test run, only then will you really know what you are buying.

 

[tschmidty]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

You can definitely get out of the water with a 135hp motor. How easily depends on how many people in the boat, etc. 200+ HP would get you out of the water no problem.

10 people is too many. Look at a lot of boats and think realistically about moving around, etc. Will get crowded quicker than you think.

+1 to the surveyor if you are going to be spending more than a few grand. Of course if you are only spending a few grand, be prepared for lots of work to fix things and maintain things. Nada is not a bad benchmark, you don't want to pay a lot over what is listed, but the ultimate value is what is paid for it. There will be a ton of variety in pricing. Again I would look at a lot of boats this summer and boat prices are going to be a lot lower in the fall/winter.

 

[djspady]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

I have gone through the same process to select a boat. We started with a 28' aft cabin that turned out to be no fun- slow and suprising little outside space. Next was a 19' ski boat, but there were too many people that wanted to go with us. Now we have a 25' bowrider with a large engine and it is perfect.
It is easy to handle, seats 12 and can pull the entire town out of the water and, oh yeah,it has a head. It doesn't burn as much gas as I feared.

My advice is talk to people and find someone that uses the boat the same as you intend and talk about the +s', -'s'

Buy a quality boat with the largest engine you can- you can always slow down.

There are some real deals out there.

 

[diesel5599]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

djspady recommended pretty much what I was going to recommend when it comes to size. You will definitely want a large bowrider from what you described. Anything less than 25' will be surprisingly little room with that many people. You did not mention your budget or your tow vehicle, or storage plans (trailer, wet dock, dry dock, etc) but they should all play into your decision.

As others have mentioned, it will be impossible for anyone but you to pick your boat, what I do is narrow down a long list of potentials to a short list based on reading, then go see the short listers to decide the exact model I want. From there I then search for that model/yr/cost/trailer/electronics/engine package that I think is the best value and best meets my needs. Usually this brings me down to about 2 or 3 within 500 miles.

One thing you should always keep in mind is how well it was maintained is the most important thing in the world when it comes to boats. A 500hr boat that is immaculate may be in far better shape than an 80hr 10yr old boat that has been sitting around with its seals dry rotting.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

You sound like a good candidate for a deck boat. Check out these just to see what I'm talking about http://www.hurricaneboats.com/

 

[koko1]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

Hello!

My husband and I are shopping for our first boat and have so many questions.

We are most likely going to go used so we have time to get used to boating and ensure we get enough use out of it before possibly trading up in a few years.

A few things that are going to be important to us:

Skiing - I'm an intermediate skiier but my husband has never gotten out of the water and wants to. He tried behind my dad's 90 hp fish & ski boat. We have an idea that we need a 220hp motor or larger (with larger boat of course), but realistically, could an 18" bowrider with a 135 hp motor pull him out of the water easily. We'd like to start with the right amount of hp from the get-go.

Family & Friend friendly - I'd imagine 50% of the time, we'll go out with only our family (2 adults & 3 kids), but the other 50% we'll want to take people with us, from 2 people up to another family of 5 (2 adults & 3 kids). Can an 8 passenger boat realistically work for us?

Can I legally take that many people on a boat rated for 8 passengers if we are under the weight limit with gear? What are the laws (will be boating in IN mostly & some in KY or OH)?

Value - how do I check values on boats and ensure I'm not overpaying? I've heard the nada website is basically for banks and dealers to "undervalue" boats.

Thanks for now, I'm sure I'll have more questions later and I'd welcome any advice!

Juretta & Patrick

It will be hard for a 135 HP motor with 4 more people on board the boat to pull a skier out of the water and not strain, which will hurt your engine over time... I would suggest a 190 HP v6... Fuel economy is not that much worse and you have the power for top end if needed and it will easily pull people out of the water with 4 or 5 people on board the boat..

If you are going to be taking that many people out I would recommend a deck boat... They are larger and will cost more but you will have all the room you need.......Anything over 6-7 people on a small bowrider is cramped and you will get ticketed for being over the weight and person limit..

Value is what people are willing to pay.. In most cases NADA is over priced on boats... The market is down right now in most area's, it is a buyers market so do not pay over NADA in this market. I just bought another boat and paid $4k under NADA.. .If buying from an individual they will probably want payoff which is going to be more than it is worth, do not deal with these people if they can not see they are going to have to be upside down on their loan to get ride of the boat...

Good luck and just take into consideration about how many people realistically you want on the boat at a time.. If over 6-7 at a time I would opt for a deck boat...

 

[jlgab345]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

Wow - such great response and so quick, thanks!! Thank you for such great info already

This is very exciting for us becuase it's something we've wanted to do for years.

Regarding budget, we are expecting to pay $10K-$20K cash...I know it's quite a large range, but ultimately it'll depend on what we find.

We have a 2009 Nissan Armada 4x4 with great towing power, I believe it's towing ability is one of the stronger out there in it's class.

We would plan to store it on a trailer either in our garage if we end up with something 20' or less or in a closed or at least covered storage facility.

It sounds like we need to find a surveyor...where would I start to look for one and what should I expect to pay per survey?

Re: the deck boat suggestion, is skiing/tubing behind it feasible?

We fell in love with a new 210 Sea Ray Select but can't justify the price tag for a new boat...so something of similar size would probably work well for us. Must husband has his heart set on a new boat but with our cash budget that puts us in the 18' range.

Now I have to figure out what "out of the hole" means and start reading up on props We are very uneducated when it comes to boats, so if anyone has any suggested reading or websites to recommend, I'll take those too!

Thank you!

 

[cwhite6]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

You may want to look into the Yamaha Jet boats. They have alot of room in them and high carrying capacities. The AR230 would be about right for you and your wants. There are pluses and minuses to jet boats, but I would at least give them a look.

 

[security6]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

We were in the same boat (no pun intended) you are in about 3 months ago. Here is some advice I got:

Never exceed the Coast Guard plate capacity - people or pounds. I was tempted to because many of our passengers are little kids (don't need much space and don't weigh much), but ultimately I didn't want to have to worry about getting a ticket for having too many people on board.

Look at deck boats. Deck boats are great family boats - lots of room, good for tubing and wakeboarding, ok for skiing. Any big boat, except an inboard sk boat, is only ok for skiing because a big boat w/ the motor in the back = big wake. With that being said, most deck boats have plenty of power to get a large guy up on a slalom ski.

Watch craigslist for deals, but don't be afraid to look at dealers too. We bought our boat through a dealer who was acting as a broker on the deal. We paid quite a bit less than the asking price.

Nada values - People who say you shouldn't pay more than Nada are doing you a disservice for a couple reasons. One, there are three Nada values (low retail, average retail, and high retail) and they don't specify which one they are talking about. Two, there are very few boats out there that sell below Nada average retail. Not to say it is impossible, but those deals are few and far between and they go fast. Maybe things are different in Florida, but that is the way things are in Wisconsin.

There are deals out there right now, but my experience is that the deals are for higher-end boats. There seems to be decent demand right now for a family boat in the $10k to $20k range.

 

[madurodave]

Re: Shopping for first boat,help please?

Wow - such great response and so quick, thanks!! Thank you for such great info already

This is very exciting for us becuase it's something we've wanted to do for years.

Regarding budget, we are expecting to pay $10K-$20K cash...I know it's quite a large range, but ultimately it'll depend on what we find.

We have a 2009 Nissan Armada 4x4 with great towing power, I believe it's towing ability is one of the stronger out there in it's class.

We would plan to store it on a trailer either in our garage if we end up with something 20' or less or in a closed or at least covered storage facility.

It sounds like we need to find a surveyor...where would I start to look for one and what should I expect to pay per survey?

Re: the deck boat suggestion, is skiing/tubing behind it feasible?

We fell in love with a new 210 Sea Ray Select but can't justify the price tag for a new boat...so something of similar size would probably work well for us. Must husband has his heart set on a new boat but with our cash budget that puts us in the 18' range.

Now I have to figure out what "out of the hole" means and start reading up on props We are very uneducated when it comes to boats, so if anyone has any suggested reading or websites to recommend, I'll take those too!

Thank you!

I tow with an 09 Armada and it's a beast. 9100 tow capacity and the tow package is great.....this is the least of your worries. There are deals to be had. be patient...and diligent in your search.