I’ve never owned a boat in my life and now that I live near the sea I would love to own a small boat to travel along the coast from one city to another.
I have no experience with boats so that’s why I would love to hear some advice if you have any.
Would you recommend a used one or a new one?
And should I get a sailing boat or a motorboat and what type would you recommend? I don’t think I’ll have enough means to get a boat with a room inside, unless it’s relatively cheap.
And is learning how to navigate a sailing boat a long process?
OP:
The best two days of owning a boat is the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
In a similar vein, a boat is a hole in the ocean that you throw money into
Not a boat owner, but trained on sailboats: if you feel like it, take sailing lessons and get a feel for it, it’s fun and relaxing. I hate motorboats for the noise, the environmental impact. And it’s kinda dull.
In any case, navigation and boating in general has rules, depending on where you are you may have to get a license.
Got to your local sail club, take lessons. When you’re trained you will be able to rent boats from time to time. Almost nobody sails enough that buying is reasonable. And anchoring in a proper port means an annual fee to pay.
This is the answer right here. Hook up with a local sailing club and take classes. If you love it, make friends with other sailors and rent the club’s boats.
If there’s interesting stuff to see near shore, and the tides are manageable, then kayaking is also great. It’s cheap and easy to get into, and great exercise.
Get your boating license first. After that, try renting a boat for the summer or piecemeal. Try washing it, refueling it, doing an overnight to another city, etc. If you like it, you can buy one next summer. If you dislike it, or don’t think you’d do it as often as you thought, you saved yourself a lot of hassle.
I worked on boats a ton and got to know the ins and outs of maintaining them. Bit of a pain in the ass, but they are quite fun. Decent amount of hidden costs. It’s a fairly investing hobby, close to (but in some cases, not as expensive as flying a small plane as a hobby. You’ll spend a lot time working on the boat to keep it in shape for excursions.)
Cleaning motor boats is a lot easier than sailboats. And if it were me, I’d make sure it was able to be trailered, and look into how expensive fuel, maintenance, insurance and most importantly, slip fees and places you can moor your boat at other harbors. If you don’t wanna pay sticker, look at the used market. A lot of boat owners are sick of paying slip fees and might part with it for less money. The flipside is that they might take a ton of cleaning and maintenance to get back into shape.
One final tip: do not exceed your fuel range, and make sure there are multiple places to refuel if you are going camping in a remote location (eg, an island chain). Some fuel depots might not be operational or have limited hours on weekends or weekdays, unlike car gas stations. Our neighbors got stuck for a weekend out in the islands when the lone fuel depot was closed on weekends, and they didn’t have the range to make it to another island.
My dad’s rule of thumb was, except to pay 10% of the purchase price every year on general maintenance. Not gas or slip fees, just maintenance. If one year you only spend 5% don’t frett, next year you’ll spend 15%.
With regards to range, 1/3 of a tank for the trip out, 1/3 for the trip home and 1/3 as a safety margin.
Boat owner here and grew up boating. Mine and my husband’s happiest place is being on the water on our boat. BUT it is expensive and there are a lot of considerations and you very much need to know how to properly operate one and know the rules of the water. For example, docking is a skill in many conditions, it’s way harder than it looks, make sure you understand right of way, constant bearing decreasing range (if a boat looks like it is in the same spot relative to your position but it keeps getting bigger and bigger you’re on a collision course), know how channel markers work (red right returning), know how to read marine maps and understand tides and how much water your boat draws so you never run aground, where are you going to keep your boat-dry slip/wet slip/boat house storage and if it’s dry storage you need a trailer for the boat and a car (truck) that can pull the weight of the boat and the trailer, then you need to learn how to launch a boat (this is just comical to watch people try, me included, I don’t even try). Dock space is expensive, fuel is expensive, maintenance is expensive. Buy used but ask how many hours the boat and engine have on it, don’t just rely on the age. And ask about maintenance history. Know that engines are WAY more expensive than you would think. And please please please take a boat safety course and get your license. If there’s any way you can be on and around other people’s boats and just watch and ask questions for a while I would highly recommend that! Two biggest things- pay attention to the weather and always put the plug in before you launch the boat!!
God speed friend
So many surprises with a boat… I learned how to drive, launch, & dock on an outboard piss yellow Grady White. Switched to inboard/outboard & relearn it all; it was a completely different steering experience.
We also watched some idiots blow up their boat because they didn’t maintain it. Fuel leaked, fumes built in the engine cavity, & when the driver went to crank it…. kaboom.
Luckily the boat was already in the water, drifting back away from the dock, & the driver hadn’t let passengers onboard yet.
To my knowledge, driver survived, but was badly injured.
Not sharing this to scare off OP, boats are awesome when you know what you’re doing.
