[QUOTE=Scylla]
but I know nothing about it. Raystown Lake which is 30 miles long is nearby as is the Chesapeake. I’d like to get a starter boat that I can take my family of four (and perhaps some friends) out on for fun, fishing, waterskiing, and sleeping on. I’d like the boat to be trailerable, high quality, safe, and forgiving.
Apparently there are a lot of different kinds of boats out there and the quality and safety is highly disparate. It’s hard for a neophyte to get good information.
At first I was thinking about a bayliner, but I read terrible things about them. I like the idea of the cruisers but it seems that quality is very very expensive in this class, and, are they really trailerable?
Than, I thought about a Grady White 20’ overnighter which was an older well-maintained boat at a reasonable price, but I got scared after reading what a surveyor said, and my wife’s feelings about such an old boat.
Now I’m looking at a 2000 Four Winns 235 Sundowner. It’s a Cuddy cabin with 300 horses.
I have two much information and analysis paralyis. Help talk me down and help me make a good decision.
[/QUOTE]
Boats will make you happy, and make you cuss. But when they make you happy, there is nothing like it. I grew up on, and learned to water ski on, 15-17ft aluminum boats, with 50-75 hp Johnson outboards. Strictly lake (in Canada at my uncles home in Ontario), or the flat waters of the lower Potomac river (with my parent’s friends who were in D.C. with the Australian embassy in the late 60’s). Other than dodging jellyfish on the Potomac, those days were heaven.
In 1980, I managed to marry a woman whose father was an avid boater on the Chesapeake Bay . I was already in love with my wife, but I then fell in love with the whole mileu of boating on the Chesapeake with my father in law. First on a 20ft fiberglass boat (the “Maranatha”), the engine of which seized on our wedding weekend, then on a glorious 42ft wooden cabin cruiser with dual engines and an upper station (the “Deloris B”), and then on a 27ft Grady White single inboard fishing machine (the “Irish Lady”) which lasted until my father in law died from brain cancer in 2003. Oh so many good memories.
With the backdrop of boating on the Chesapeake, I bought my own boat, a Mariah, 19ft inboard/outboard, in 1993, for cruising and waterskiing on the lakes where I currently live. Mariah boats were made in Ohio, and until the company went bankrupt, made really good boats, with amazing features for the money.
Owning a boat, though, no matter the size or quality, is a hefty monetary investment. Water is a harsh element, and boats are not invincible. Just routine maintenance on a boat is far more expensive than maint. on a car. And, after the original novelty wears off, you may find that your priorities change and you aren’t actually on the water every single weekend. That being said, as you can see from my post, once you are smitten by the water, you can’t avoid buying your own boat. My advice is simply this; buy a boat that is smaller than your fantasies but still meets your needs - you can always buy a bigger boat later!
