Help me buy a boat

[Shoe]

Thanks for the replies all! You guys definitely helped me get started in the right direction. I'm going boat shopping this afternoon. I don't think I will buy anything until it gets closer to spring, but mainly want to get a better idea of what's out there. I am almost certain now that I am going to buy something by May.

I was planning to go with an I/O, but now that I know they aren't as good I might have to go with an Outboard. Are you still able run the boat onto sand bars and party where a bunch of other boats are gathered with an outboard? I estimate my use will be about 25% fun and 75% fishing, so from what was said in this thread I am starting to lean towards outboard now.

[Ray Zee]

17 to 19 foot outboard for fishing. will water ski fine. too big is as bad as too small. decide aluminum or glass. i vote alum for fishing glass for skiing.
buy used and 6 to 7 g's gets a nice boat you dont have to insure or worry about every little ding on it. you need a kicker motor for slow going as well. you can add that.
get canvass top that folds up and down and open bow. all the rest is wasted on worrying about. its a boat.

[Skoob]

Any 19 ft. runabout should have electric trim and tilt on it so beaching the boat on a sand bar or beach won't be a problem with either type.

Outboards shouldn't be run tilted up very far because it messes up the oil pressure. Most newer four-stroke out boards will sound an alarm (beeping) if you tilt it up too high while running the engine (but this won't effect you beaching it as you'll shut off the engine on approach anyway - just tilt it the rest of the way up after you turn it off). An I/O you can run up nearly all the way if you want, but those tend to draft deeper anyway. You wouldn't want to beach an I/O with it running either because you can get sand in your intake and mess up the engine.

If you're going to do 75% fishing, you might consider something like a Lund Tyee:


Though the Lunds don't really offer any sort of lounge seating. It's all chairs.

The aluminum hull allows you to beach it on rocks or whatever. If you beach a fiberglass boat on anything but sand or weeds, you'll damage the hull.

[guids]

If you are anyhwere near a bass pro shop, check out this weeks ad, I actually just got done looking at it, and was suprised at how cheap some of the boats were. They had a pontoon boat, that if I was anyhwere near water I would have bought, it was like 10k. But they also had some other boats that would be more up your alley.

[Shoe]

I'm going to be looking at a 2004 Four winns 18 ft. fish & ski. Similar used one I have seen people asking around 19-20k for. This one the dealer is asking 15k. New ones cost 25k or so. They are getting it in the shop this week and I'm going to take a look at it, and plan to buy it if everything pans out. Does that price sound right to you guys or does it sound like there is something wrong with the boat?

They promised to send me a service report, so when I get that I'll have more info, but the salesman mentioned it had some work done for a dry fuel problem? Not sure if I worded that right or what that is or if that is something I should be worried about. It has also had some prop work done, not sure if any other work has been done on it yet.

If I buy a 2 year warranty with it, is that a long enough time for any serious problems to come up? The type of boat and price sounds good to me -- I plan to haggle on the price some more but haven't been able to find a good site like kbb or edmunds for boats. I really want a boat but don't want to have it constantly be in service either. Does anyone know if those problems sound serious or anything else I should make sure on before buying it?

Link to the 2006 model (2004 is pretty much the same): Link