dyintorace wrote: You should buy my Hurricane deck boat. It will be listed within ~2 weeks!
In deeper waters, maybe, but here, deeper boats don't go very far.
dyintorace wrote: You should buy my Hurricane deck boat. It will be listed within ~2 weeks!
In deeper waters, maybe, but here, deeper boats don't go very far.
Flight Service wrote:dyintorace wrote: You should buy my Hurricane deck boat. It will be listed within ~2 weeks!In deeper waters, maybe, but here, deeper boats don't go very far.
But it only needs 14" draft! 
Blah. The throttle guy does all the work in those classes. Good hull, reliable boat, and good throttle guy and you got it.
You have no idea what he was talking about.
http://youtu.be/tOWBTR7D2mA
I own three boats. We have a ton of fun on them, don't spend a pile of money, and go places and do things with them that we couldn't do any other way. It's no different than a hobby automobile. And I don't fish ( at least traditionally... Freedive spear fishing).
MattGent wrote:Blah. The throttle guy does all the work in those classes. Good hull, reliable boat, and good throttle guy and you got it.You have no idea what he was talking about. http://youtu.be/tOWBTR7D2mA I own three boats. We have a ton of fun on them, don't spend a pile of money, and go places and do things with them that we couldn't do any other way. It's no different than a hobby automobile. And I don't fish ( at least traditionally... Freedive spear fishing).
LOL, that was us in #99 in F2. George Galloway. George retired in 08.
FWIW I am the guy who threw Kenny off the dock!
Mad_Machine was talking about off-shore V racing with the above quote.
In reply to MattGent:
Hey is Sam LaBlanco still running on occasion? Hell of a driver. After he would spin once, drove like a maniac after that.
Here is our old F2 boat.
Grand Prix I believe the Brooks Brothers are driving it this year.
Here is our Hoffman F3 boat. I don't know what happened to it.
and George strapped in. Always happy and easy going.
I love boats. Been around them since i was born, and I'll be buying my first that is all mine sometime this summer. I just have yet to decide if it will be a small sailboat (I don't know how to sail but would love to learn) or a small jon boat for puttering and fishing.
No big water around here to need anything bigger.
“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” ― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
I was at a ducks unlimited show and a boat mfg was there that makes custom boats. They had a boat there that had a landing craft style gate on the front and the front deck was large enough to hold a couple of ATVs, or a CJ-5, or a duck hunting boat or whatever. It was awesome!
RealMiniDriver wrote: Break Out Another Thousand And they say Harley-Davidsons (HD*) are an expensive hobby vehicle. *Hundred Dollars
Sell the Harley and buy the only Honda worth owning..... a Honda bike. You'll be down to the Ten's of dollars. 
Owning a boat is no more expensive than owning a car, really.
If you own a 78 Chevy, parts are cheap, easy to fix. So you do a tune up in your driveway for $50. Take it to a shop and they'll charge you $300.
If you own a 2010 BMW, tune up parts would be $100, but having a shop do it would be $1600.
Same goes for a boat. Its spark plugs, carburetors, etc. I bought a good hull (83 Baja Supersport), dropped in a vortec 350, rebuilt the outdrive, and I'm on the water doing 65 for less than $3000. So far, it hasn't needed a penny in five years. I'm going to re do the floor soon and that should be a $200 investment.
Often times labor is more expensive for boats than cars because the mechanics are working upside down in a very constrained space on an engine that cannot be accessed from underneath; additionally it will take longer because of said space constraints.
But in my experience, if you are mildly DIY capable a boat does not need to be expensive.
some boats are seemingly designed to be hard to work on.. I remember one my father used to work on when he was a marine mechanic. It used an updraft(!?) carb. Worked great until you flooded it and all the fuel ran out the intake and into the bilge.
Many times boats need to use suction devices to remove the oil as the drainplug is either inaccessable or you cannot get a pan under the engine to collect the old oil.
One thing more expensive about boats is the marine only stuff (ie exhaust manifolds and carbs). Getting someone else to do fiberglass and paint work is expensive. My brother had a sail boat on Lake Norman when Hurricane Hugo went through. The best paint shop in the area was in high cotton for many years. He only had few scratches on a fairly new boat. It was thousands of $$ to fix.
I agree boats don't have to be too expensive if you are a DIY type. If I ever end up on some water somewhere, I'm going to have a Boston Whaler. We used those at the Fish and Wildlfe service they were awesome. None f the Whalers ever went to a shop the three years I worked there. A Ski Barge we had with a 100HP Evinrude (a rocket at the time) was another story.
That's one of the reasons I designed my engine cover and back seat to be out of the way. Mine is pretty easy to work on.
... at least a LOT easier than my Powerstroke Van. 
that is why boats do not scare me.. I can do all my own maintance and repairs.. and that includes glass and paint work
Yeah if you can work on them, they aren't that bad. We charge $89/h for little engines and $105/h for the bigger ones, plus mileage.
I really like the idea of getting a smallish inflatable boat, something that wouldn't need a trailer, storage, or much motor to push it around. My grandfather has one and it is pretty much indestructible, gets dragged over rocks, sand in the Georgian bay every year for a few months out of the year for the last 15 years or so. The only problem it has had was when a mouse ate it. Even then they sell patch kits. I think it is powered by some 30 year old low HP Evinrude that has been just short of indestructible also
My only issue with boats over cars is the fuel mileage. It is very unusual to get 2mpg from say a 18' 150hp deck boat, usually you're in the 1mpg range. That's why many boats have massive fuel tanks.
Mmadness wrote: My only issue with boats over cars is the fuel mileage. It is very unusual to get 2mpg from say a 18' 150hp deck boat, usually you're in the 1mpg range. That's why many boats have massive fuel tanks.
WOT maybe. But your point still stands.
Mmadness wrote: My only issue with boats over cars is the fuel mileage. It is very unusual to get 2mpg from say a 18' 150hp deck boat, usually you're in the 1mpg range. That's why many boats have massive fuel tanks.
Think of cruising in a boat as analogous to continuously driving up a very steep grade all the time in a car.
The drag of water makes it so that it takes a lot more power to maintain speed than, say, a car/truck on the highway.
What I'm trying to say is that it's the physics of it...comparing fuel mileage of a car to that of a boat is like apples and oranges.
For me, at least, a boat is not about transportation. It's more about fun!
Clem
In reply to ClemSparks:
There is a competition in Professional Boatbuilder yearly. I believe year before last it was fuel efficient boats. They were trying to get the equivalent of 15 mpg. A few got there.
Mmadness wrote: My only issue with boats over cars is the fuel mileage. It is very unusual to get 2mpg from say a 18' 150hp deck boat, usually you're in the 1mpg range. That's why many boats have massive fuel tanks.
My whaler can go all day water skiing/fishing/diving on 6-8 gallons or less, well worth it!
But point taken, one boat we regularly take out burns 195 gallons an hour WOT, per engine!
ClemSparks wrote: Think of cruising in a boat as analogous to continuously driving up a very steep grade all the time in a car. IN FIRST GEAR
fixed that for you.
The boat I am getting has the potential to travel hundreds and thousands of miles on no fuel at all
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