Another Bay Boat price question... 175 hrs on a 15 year old boat

Some people like the idea of a boat.

I’m usually leery of something that old with low hours.

Price is not outrageous though.

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He has to have more hours than this?

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I bought a 7yr old boat with 6 hours on a Yamaha F115. Older man bought it, used it twice and never again. I had to drain the gas and clean injectors, but that's about it.

Lot of people think they're going to use a boat all the time and never do.

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Some people don't fish much, or they do at this one place every time that has a 10 minute boat ride and thats it

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Fishing down in Vermilion bay in the fall at least once a week this fall and I put 10 hours on mine. As said, some fishing doesn’t take much.

It's much more common than you think. A year and a half ago I bought a 2012 Sea Hunt with a 150 Yamaha and it had 207 hours at the sale. Motor has been perfect so far.

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bought my last boat with 35 hours on it and sold it with 65. And I used the hell out of it.

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That's pretty common close to the coast. Short boat rides relative to someone who fishes offshore or big lakes like toledo bend.

Even offshore fishing doesn't really stack the hours on unless you do it a lot or overnight.

We've gotten so spoiled to these wonderful engines that start every time and last 4,000 hours.

Engine hours can really mislead people. In an inshore/bay boat, you typically run the distance to your spots, turn off the engine, and throw out your trolling motor. Some run further than others to their fishing spots but lets just say you average 3-4hrs of run time in a day of fishing. It will take a while to accumulate hours on that engine. I would still say that this is a low hour engine for its age, that doesn't mean that the owner doesn't baby the boat/engine.

On the other hand, you see these offshore boats with high engine hours because most never turn off their engines while fishing. Our sword and grouper trips usually take about 12hrs and the engines are on the whole time and we make a couple of those trips a year on top of the other fishing adventures for snapper and such. Engines has 500+hrs in 4 years.

In purchasing this boat, I'd be more interested in how the boat looks overall to gauge how much wear and tear or neglect the engine has. Is it kept out in the sun? Covered? Lots of spider cracks? Does it look like its been waxed since its been bought? Based on the appearance of the boat and hull, you can estimate the shape of the engine.

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This is a 15 year old boat with 175 hours on the motor. Do you think he is missing a zero behind the 5?

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Looks newer than a 150 year old boat.

Sorry, had to. But I dont like the wording of the ad. Motivated seller, but new winter ONLY price and cash talks (like he willing to negotiate lower)? Seems a little scammy to word it that way and say price would go up in Spring. Seems like a boat flipper looking for profit that may hide proper repair/fixes.

Have the motor, electronics and controls checked by a professional....and test ride the shite out of it.
Thats all you can really do.

I personally have a 2005 bay boat and motor, a 2 stroke carburated johnson, that was purchased new by my father. And although it has no hour meter or ecm to record hours I am almost certain it has less than 250 hours. I had the same boat as my dads only a 2003 that I purchased new with a 2 stroke yamaha that i sold in 2020 with maybe 350 hours. Those hours on the boat you are referring to are probably accurate as most people only use their fishing boats to fish and most peoples run time on a fishing trip is 2 hours or less.