Any Boat Owners?

[AG_PhamD]

Okay, a suppose this is a different type of garage than cars, but it seemed like the most appropriate thread.

I’m curious if we have any boat owners here. What do you have? How do you like it?

I grew up with my parents owning several boats, 2 Grady Whites, a Catalina 35’ sailboat for many years, and most recently a 2014 Sailfish 270 WAC- sold in 2020 due to awful fishing in Long Island sound due to climate change (plus they weren’t much in love with the boat).

My wife and I have been looking into buying a sailboat, with the intention of someday doing some bluewater sailing (ie Bermuda, down the Caribbean). Ideally a 44-50ft monohull with all the equipment and safety for offshore sailing. Given our schedules at the moment, we might start with something smaller and more designed for weekend sailing- less complexity to maintain, cheaper to dock, etc.

 

[Herdfan]

You know what they say about boats: Two happiest days are when you buy it and when you sell it.

I also grew up with boats, mainly my dad's bass boats. The one nice thing about them though is they have a great power/weight ratio. They would pull a skier and a tuber better than any of the Four Winns or Bayliner's my friend's had.

When my parents retired, they bought a lake house. So I bought a boat that I liked: a nice Formula with a big ass motor. Lasted a year. While it was a sweet boat, it wasn't a good lake boat with 10 people on it. Traded it on a 24' Hurricane deck boat and had it for 15 years. It was sold with the house.

I love boats, I just hate all you have to do to keep them ready to go.

When the lake house sold, we bought a SXS to take the place of something to ride and quite frankly, we enjoy it more.

 

[Eric]

You know what they say about boats: Two happiest days are when you buy it and when you sell it.

I also grew up with boats, mainly my dad's bass boats. The one nice thing about them though is they have a great power/weight ratio. They would pull a skier and a tuber better than any of the Four Winns or Bayliner's my friend's had.

When my parents retired, they bought a lake house. So I bought a boat that I liked: a nice Formula with a big ass motor. Lasted a year. While it was a sweet boat, it wasn't a good lake boat with 10 people on it. Traded it on a 24' Hurricane deck boat and had it for 15 years. It was sold with the house.

I love boats, I just hate all you have to do to keep them ready to go.

When the lake house sold, we bought a SXS to take the place of something to ride and quite frankly, we enjoy it more.

This couldn't be more true about our experience with a new RV many years ago, it takes a lot of effort to store, maintain and planning to use it. It's better when you know someone with a boat or RV lol.

 

[AG_PhamD]

You know what they say about boats: Two happiest days are when you buy it and when you sell it.

I also grew up with boats, mainly my dad's bass boats. The one nice thing about them though is they have a great power/weight ratio. They would pull a skier and a tuber better than any of the Four Winns or Bayliner's my friend's had.

When my parents retired, they bought a lake house. So I bought a boat that I liked: a nice Formula with a big ass motor. Lasted a year. While it was a sweet boat, it wasn't a good lake boat with 10 people on it. Traded it on a 24' Hurricane deck boat and had it for 15 years. It was sold with the house.

I love boats, I just hate all you have to do to keep them ready to go.

When the lake house sold, we bought a SXS to take the place of something to ride and quite frankly, we enjoy it more.

Haha, yes, I’m well aware of that old expression. They are definitely a lot of work and money to maintain. But I think it’ll be worth it for the enjoyment they bring, at least at this point in my life. Plus, we live in a Condo so it’s not like we have to deal with the maintenance of a house.

A Formula to a deck boat, that’s quite the shift! I suppose if you’re entertaining the latter is the more practical choice.

I will say growing up with the Grady’s with I/O engines and then having the Sailfish with outboards (2x Yamaha 150’s), the maintenance with outboards is so much better. Plus Yamaha makes fantastic engine. No giant through holes in the transom, no complicated I/O drive nonsense, no crawling into the tiny engine bay. Worst case you pull the engine off. You also get a lot more space not having that giant engine box. The Sailfish was 27ft and honestly felt bigger than


I should also mention my wife’s parents have an Outremer Catamaran- 48ft IIRC. Cats are super practical, but I’m not that into them. Plus they’re way more expensive than monohulls. I will say it’s a beautiful boat, absurdly efficient (i.e. sailing 9knts in 10knts of wind) and super fast. It would be nice if they didn’t keep it on Nantucket so we could use it more often. In my fathers words “the best boat to sail is the one you don’t own”.

 

[Herdfan]

A Formula to a deck boat, that’s quite the shift! I suppose if you’re entertaining the latter is the more practical choice.

I will say growing up with the Grady’s with I/O engines and then having the Sailfish with outboards (2x Yamaha 150’s), the maintenance with outboards is so much better. Plus Yamaha makes fantastic engine. No giant through holes in the transom, no complicated I/O drive nonsense, no crawling into the tiny engine bay. Worst case you pull the engine off. You also get a lot more space not having that giant engine box. The Sailfish was 27ft and honestly felt bigger than

When we got the Formula, our daughter was very young. But we soon realized that more than 4 people on it was crowded. Plus, that 454 sucked gas like it was free. The one mistake I made was going with the I/O. Very hard to work on. A couple of years in I almost traded it for an outboard but we decided that a covered engine would be safer with young kids. Heard good things about Yamaha's, but never had one. Grew up loving the look of Mercury's so that is where I tended to veer to. Dad had a bass boat with a 225 Suzuki and it never gave him any trouble.

The price of boats has gotten out of hand. Went to a boat show last spring and they had a pontoon for over $100K. A pontoon!!!!

 

[AG_PhamD]

When we got the Formula, our daughter was very young. But we soon realized that more than 4 people on it was crowded. Plus, that 454 sucked gas like it was free. The one mistake I made was going with the I/O. Very hard to work on. A couple of years in I almost traded it for an outboard but we decided that a covered engine would be safer with young kids. Heard good things about Yamaha's, but never had one. Grew up loving the look of Mercury's so that is where I tended to veer to. Dad had a bass boat with a 225 Suzuki and it never gave him any trouble.

The price of boats has gotten out of hand. Went to a boat show last spring and they had a pontoon for over $100K. A pontoon!!!!

There’s a reason no one makes I/O’s anymore. Haha. For most power boats outboards are what people are going with. Now that they can cram V8’s and V12’s into outboards house see boats as big as 50-60ft with several outboards slapped across the stern.

A lot of modern sailboats have switched to sail drives have switched to sail drives. So the output shaft comes out of the boat vertically and the transmission is basically underwater, outside of the boat. It’s more efficient and reduces asymmetric thrust, but I think it’s actually become so ubiquitous because it’s cheaper and allows the engine to be pushed back further allowing for more interior room. I’m not a fan considering salt water can potentially leak into the transmission and it requires a 8-9”+ hole in the hull. They’re also not as reliable as a normal shaft drive. My in-laws catamaran has them and they’ve had chronic water seepage on one of them.

In the 5 or so years of owning the Yamahas my parents never had a major issue. And they always started on the first turn of the key, even after sitting for the winter.

Wow! $100k for a pontoon boat? I hope those pontoons are made of platinum. Why would you spend that much money on a pontoon boat when you could buy a much more legitimate boat?

Buying a brand new boat in my mind is rather silly. It’s not like you’re getting much of a warranty and warranties on boats are generally a nightmare, especially when it’s equipment made by a 3rd party. I’d rather save myself 30-50% a buy a boat that’s slightly older but has a thorough history.

 

[Herdfan]

A lot of modern sailboats have switched to sail drives have switched to sail drives. So the output shaft comes out of the boat vertically and the transmission is basically underwater, outside of the boat. It’s more efficient and reduces asymmetric thrust, but I think it’s actually become so ubiquitous because it’s cheaper and allows the engine to be pushed back further allowing for more interior room.

Most modern cruise ships use a form of this. They call them azipods. But they contain electric motors vs transmissions.

Are the ones on sailboats steerable. That was the main benefit for cruise ships as they can act like a set of stern thrusters.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Most modern cruise ships use a form of this. They call them azipods. But they contain electric motors vs transmissions.

Are the ones on sailboats steerable. That was the main benefit for cruise ships as they can act like a set of stern thrusters.

The azipods are also found on tugboats and other large ships and can be electric or mechanically driven by the engines.

Similar idea I suppose- though saildrives are more like the bottom half of a conventional outboard suck through the hull of the boat. But propeller does not move to steer the boat, there is still a rudder for that.

Volvo also has a weird system that’s basically a forward facing stern drive that pulls the boat through the water with contra-rotating props. I’d think this would make your props even more susceptible to damage and cut all lot more lobster pot lines.

There is actually something more similar to azipods for recreational boats call pod drives- Volvo IPS was the big one. Basically a miniature mechanically powered azipod. Or basically a sail drive that could rotate to turn the boat. I think these only work if you have at least two, most sailboats don’t have two engines and these probably create a lot of drag, so probably we’re reserved for powerboats.

I think these fell out of favor quickly 1. Because IPS was extremely unreliable and expensive and complicated to fix. And 2: There are new outboards though with steerable propellers that make tight maneuvering very easy and can actually be programmed to keep the boat stationary, automatically hold a gps coordinate.

Interestingly Volvo Penta engines seem to have nearly disappeared on new sailboats. Up until recently the market share was like 50/50 Volvo/Yanmar. Now every new boat I see has a Yanmar. Even brands that religiously used Volvo in the past. I think they had a lot of reliability issues in the not so distant past.

On land or at sea, the Japanese know how to make a great engine.

 

[Edd]

I joined a boat club last summer. Doing it this summer also and then hopefully back to regular traveling the following year. It mostly consist of riding 24’ bow riders off the coast of NH. I’m competent to do that real sailing is way beyond me.

 

[DT]

I also grew up with boats [...]

Same. I've always lived near the coast, I've spent a decent amount of time offshore, knocking around in the intracoastal - decks, DCs, lots of center consoles (my Dad had a 23' Seabird, deep vee hull, it would eat up the big swells), I've had some time on sailboats, we have two friends, one lives full time on a sail, the other has a beautiful restoration, we occasionally meet him/them for drinks on their vessel.

I've been on a Hatteras, a Bertram, had a family friend that was a reseller for Whaler and Grady-White (went on some tournament fishing events with him).

We had a 20' DC Hydra-Sports, it was fun on occasion but not used enough so we sold it (to the family dealer friend I mentioned above). We talk about getting another boat, just a smaller bowrider for the intracoastal, like a 17-18' deck boat, with a tow setup, something around 3000 lbs total tow weight that's easy to launch. Our next 1-2 years is a bit up the air, so who knows

 

[AG_PhamD]

I joined a boat club last summer. Doing it this summer also and then hopefully back to regular traveling the following year. It mostly consist of riding 24’ bow riders off the coast of NH. I’m competent to do that real sailing is way beyond me.

These are an interesting prospect. My godfather did this for several years but ended up buying a Boston Whaler. I think the factor was he wanted a nicer boat than what was available and didn’t want to deal with reservations during peak times.

Given my schedule currently, it might be looking into further. On the other hand, I know one sailing club here in Boston wants $7000/yr for access to a 30ft boat worth probably worth $35-50k. No dock fees, maintenance, insurance I presume, etc though.

Same. I've always lived near the coast, I've spent a decent amount of time offshore, knocking around in the intracoastal - decks, DCs, lots of center consoles (my Dad had a 23' Seabird, deep vee hull, it would eat up the big swells), I've had some time on sailboats, we have two friends, one lives full time on a sail, the other has a beautiful restoration, we occasionally meet him/them for drinks on their vessel.

I've been on a Hatteras, a Bertram, had a family friend that was a reseller for Whaler and Grady-White (went on some tournament fishing events with him).

We had a 20' DC Hydra-Sports, it was fun on occasion but not used enough so we sold it (to the family dealer friend I mentioned above). We talk about getting another boat, just a smaller bowrider for the intracoastal, like a 17-18' deck boat, with a tow setup, something around 3000 lbs total tow weight that's easy to launch. Our next 1-2 years is a bit up the air, so who knows

Do you know what kind of boat the live-aboard has?

I love fishing, for which a power boat is obviously ideal, but being able to go out on the water, not have to listen to the roar of engines, and relax with friends is what I’m looking forward to.

Mmmm… Pursuit. Those are beautiful boats. One of my favorites in terms of sport fishing boats.

 

[DT]

Do you know what kind of boat the live-aboard has?

I love fishing, for which a power boat is obviously ideal, but being able to go out on the water, not have to listen to the roar of engines, and relax with friends is what I’m looking forward to.

Mmmm… Pursuit. Those are beautiful boats. One of my favorites in terms of sport fishing boats.

Yes! They have a Pearson 385, our other friends have sailboat manufactured by Ta Shing (originally Shing Sheng) out of Taiwan, early 80's I believe, it's really beautiful, looks new.

The folks with the Pearson used all electric/battery to keep noise down too, especially in the evening to run power (vs. running a generator), even their dingy has a small, electric outboard.

 

[lizkat]

One of my kin was quite a sailor, owned a 68' wooden yawl built in the 1930s, developed his crew over the years in the Block Island races, and even sailed a few times in the Bermuda.

I had fun with those guys a few summers, just sailing along the coast to Maine, but it was also from them that I learned the downhome truth that a boat, no matter how lovingly restored or cared for, always remains a deep hole in the water surrounded by a whole lot of money.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Yes! They have a Pearson 385, our other friends have sailboat manufactured by Ta Shing (originally Shing Sheng) out of Taiwan, early 80's I believe, it's really beautiful, looks new.

The folks with the Pearson used all electric/battery to keep noise down too, especially in the evening to run power (vs. running a generator), even their dingy has a small, electric outboard.

Yes! They have a Pearson 385, our other friends have sailboat manufactured by Ta Shing (originally Shing Sheng) out of Taiwan, early 80's I believe, it's really beautiful, looks new.

The folks with the Pearson used all electric/battery to keep noise down too, especially in the evening to run power (vs. running a generator), even their dingy has a small, electric outboard.

Nice! Pearsons are a classic and quality built boats. I just looked up the 385- looks like a great layout. 38ft center cockpit with 2 heads and a stall shower is pretty incredible packaging. Especially for the 80’s.

High output alternators + Solar + Lithium definitely seems like the way to go, if you can get your power needs handled. Having to deal with the maintenance of an extra Diesel engine alone is a PITA.

My dream boat would probably be an Oyster or Discovery- they’re quite expensive though and there aren’t many on the second hand market- and those that do exist tend to be in Europe.

My dream boat is either an Oyster, Discovery, or this niche brand called Kraken- but they are extremely expensive and not easy to find. A similar yet more affordable option to Oyster are Hylas’. I looked at several this past summer, including flying down to NC to checkout a Hylas 49’ that I came very close to pulling the trigger on. Ultimately the seller wanted more than what my broker and I thought was reasonable. Two of the others were 54’, very nice boats, but too big IMO. The used boat market like cars and houses has been a bit crazy lately, though there are signs things are getting more reasonable.

We’re debating buying the boat we’d ideally like to own (45-50ft blue water capable) vs. something less expensive thats more in line our current needs (35-40ft coastal cruiser). It’s a lot more expensive to buy and maintain the former, but at the same time boats depreciate and are $$$ to maintain, so is it better off to just buy the boat that fulfills our longterm goals and get to know it inside and out.

 

[DT]

For us, we determined that being - call it - a casual owner, wasn't great. You have to really be all in, commit to using it often, run it, maintain it, get your money's worth. Our friends who boat, do it constantly, even to the point (like I mentioned above) to living on one, part or full time.

Heck, we have a ramp right in our neighborhood, it's 4 blocks away, I'm not sure what our excuse was

 

[DT]

Well, we've been discussing staying where we're at for at least the next 4 years, there's been some talk about NOT doing that, which is a whole separate post - but, if we do commit, I think we're going to get another boat, everyone is into it, especially the daughter, as I mentioned above we've got a nice ramp 6 blocks from the house (and another 3 within 7-8 miles), a 17-18' deck boat, nicely setup, just something midline like an Element or Tahoe, under 3000# so an easy tow for the Wrangler.

 

[lizkat]

Blue water craft are definitely holes in the water perpetually surrounded by a pile of dough. You have to be all in and stay that way for the investment not to become both a headache AND an eventual loss., Fun in the meantime though at least for carefree kin and friends invited aboard!

 

[Herdfan]

Well, we've been discussing staying where we're at for at least the next 4 years, there's been some talk about NOT doing that, which is a whole separate post - but, if we do commit, I think we're going to get another boat, everyone is into it, especially the daughter, as I mentioned above we've got a nice ramp 6 blocks from the house (and another 3 within 7-8 miles), a 17-18' deck boat, nicely setup, just something midline like an Element or Tahoe, under 3000# so an easy tow for the Wrangler.

Outboard or I/O?

 

[Edd]

So we've decided we're loving the boat club too much so continuing on for next year most likely. Our 2 year contract is up this April so, if they want to raise rates too much (strong possibility), there's a minor chance we'll bail. We'll scrape $ together to keep traveling. Got an epic Mexico trip planned for next month; can't stop thinking about it.

 

[DT]

Outboard or I/O?

Outboard. The E18 has a 90 standard Yamaha 4-stroke, then an option for a 115 Yamaha, and a top-of-the-line factory option for a 115 Yamaha Pro XS.

Knowing my love for performance cars, you can probably guess the motor option I'd choose Plus, it doesn't add much cost, very little weight difference, etc., at the point you're spending X it doesn't really make a difference.