re: Without trying to talk me out of it, or telling me how it’s a money pit….boats

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I got a few emails back from some dealers about the Xpress Skiff. Most don’t have them and said they would have to be sold orders, and ordering one is 6-8 months. Not awful but I’m really wanting something for the summer. I understand that I should have been doing this way earlier, but apparently my son has told my wife that he’s bummed I don’t take him, so she told me I need to find one and I have the green light. One dealer has a couple in Alabama but they’re not set up/color I would want. Keep the recs coming and thank you guys!!

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That is no small consideration...if the wife is onboard you are ahead of the game.

I would offer this however...I have owned a heap of boats. I own three as we speak. I bought the first one I owned when I was 10 years old and outside of maybe 3 years total in the ensuing 48 years I have not been without one or more. I am not certain there has been any time that I did not have one. They have ranged from car topper jon boats 10 feet long to offshore boats with multiple outboards and even a houseboat years ago. If you have lived long enough to be without a boat until you were advanced in years enough to be a father I would suggest buying one way below your top end budget....by more than 60-70%. My reasoning is this...you aren't certain you will use the thing. If you were certain you would most likely own one already. It is the dream of every boat owner who ever existed to use the boat every chance they got...very few boat owners ever lament using their boat too often...but almost all boat owners think they do not use their boat often enough. In todays world $25K ain't a lot of money but it really is, especially for a depreciating asset which may or may not be used much and for almost certain will not be used as much as you would like. There are a heaping pile of boats sitting around that are costing their owners a pile of money and the hull only gets wet from the inside when it rains. Most of those people bought those boats thinking their use would justify the expense and then realized every time they used it they were spending a couple of hundred dollars on fuel and food and drink for a day on the water. Not to mention bait and tackle. Modern 4 strokes are incredible fuel efficient but they are still gas guzzling sons of guns for the most part. And the tow vehicle is also...a day on the water is not cheap even in a small jon boat with a tiller outboard.

There is also the issue of trailering and storing. If it can't be kept in the yard it is infinitely worse. If it can it still is a lot of work to load it, trailer it, unload it, spend the day, load it back on the trailer, trailer it home, park it and unload it and clean it up. All of this will be done by you most likely. Mama and the kids will be tired and hungry...they could care less if the boat is destroyed until they get in it the next time around. It is going to fall on you, most likely, to ice it down and put it to bed. If you can keep it in the water it is far more convenient but also comes with its own set of issues.

Buying a new boat is nice but it can lead to a lot of false assumptions which, if money is an object, will lead to all manner of ills. A new boat, under warranty from stem to stern, is not much of a maintenance headache, unless it sitting at the shop for 3 months out of 12, if you're lucky, would cause your head to ache and if it doesn't it raises questions about how often you are using it to begin with. If you are like most boat owners you will wind up doing a lot of maintenance yourself....simple items like changing the oil and maybe the impeller and figuring out why the navigation lights are flickering. If the thinking is that it will be under warranty and the dealer will take care of it they most certainly will, for the most part, but they have a lot of other customers who bought a boat with the same thinking and they only have so many mechanics and space to work in. Most of those boats in front of you in line for maintenance belong to people who do not use them regularly...and probably ought not to have bought one in the first place. If you mean to use it most weekends you are going to wind up doing a lot of maintenance yourself. If you do not know how (they are very simple machines by the way) you may not be able to use it enough to warrant owning it. On the other hand, doing some if not all of the maintenance yourself will give you the knowledge and confidence that when the damned thing starts to act up in the water on a Sunday afternoon you can get it back to the hill and most likely address it before next week...and you will not have as much money in it to begin with.

There are A LOT of 15 or so year old bay and flats boats available for around $10-$15K. Unless they have some serious problems they are most likely as reliable as a $25K new boat. Outboard engines are about as reliable as anything gets and they are relatively simple machines. The hull itself is as simple as anything can be...it is nothing more than a hole in the water to keep the occupants fairly dry relative to being neck deep in the water. The systems in the boat are simple if not overly reliable...water and electrical components are never going to be happy together.

Finally, if you buy a reliable used boat you will not be out of pocket for nearly the same amount of money and you can see if owning is right for you at a lower price of entry. If it is not your thing you can sell it yourself...you may lose some money but you ain't going to close to what the depreciation is normally (the market is not near normal at the moment but it is getting there). If you do indeed find that owning is all you dreamed of...and it often is...you can sell the initial boat and move up to a new model that fits your needs.

A large modified vee jon boat (1860 or so) and a 40HP tiller will do anything a bay or skiff boat will do with the exception of going offshore...and there are times when it can do that also. It can tow a tube (probably not a learning skier) and is stable, will float in inches of water, can be towed by smaller vehicles and will give you a taste of what owning a boat means for you for less than $10k...and the market for it will be about what it is now 20 years from now. They ain't sexy, they ain't flashy, but they also ain't expensive and they will do anything a sexy, flashy boat will do. I would just about guarantee your kids want on the water...they will think an older jon boat is the cats meow. I know I do still....