Best Motorboat for the Balaerics

Good call. Cabin is very small but if this isn't an issue for the OP then Windy Mirage 25 would be another great choice. Class leading handling, a decent cockpit and just enough space for a overnight stay (as long as you don't need an enclosed loo).

Mirage is an excellent boat. Not sure you'd get one in the £30k budget but if you could it would be a winner
 
Mirage is an excellent boat. Not sure you'd get one in the £30k budget but if you could it would be a winner

I've seen some older windy 25's (2001/2002 ish) for a bit more than that when I was looking and bought mine 2 years ago. They do appear hard to come by though, especially in the balearics.
 
I'm now fortunate enough to be able to spend more time at my little casita in Ibiza. Whilst I took my ICC some years ago I've never had time to enjoy exploring the Balaerics until now. What would be a suitable size (safe, low maintenance, comfortable) motorboat capable of the occasional crossing from Ibiza to Mallorca? All help appreciated !

Is your ICC up to 24 metres ? The rules changed in 2004. If you did a powerboat level 2 course then after 1st January 2005 you would only be entitled to an ICC up to 10 metres.
 
It's for 24 m although the last boat I had was a 16ft Simms super vee ! :)

Had one of those,Metallic Red topsides.The construction was "light" to say the least.Bit of a novelty on sunny day to see clearly the water outside the boat in some detail.
Powered by 40HP Suzuki,part of marketing package by some UK company or other. :)
 
Are petrol engines that bad? They really seem to bring the resale prices down in Europe but the Yanksk ow a thing or two about building solid petrol engines
 
Petrol engines are fine from a reliability perspective,but they're obviously more expensive to run in terms of amount of fuel used than diesel, and i think its this fact that puts a lot of people off. Plus in the uk a lot of marinas dont sell petrol,and if they do its priced disproportionately higher than deisel, but this isnt a problem in the balearics.

The larger the boat the more difficult it will be to sell on if it has petrol engines.

For a boat at 20foot petrol engines are not an issue, at 25 foot its marginal, start going over that and boats with petrol engines get very hard to sell, hence their prices are substantially lower than the same boat with diesels.

But if the cost saving of the purchase price of the petrol engined boat is significant ,it could be worth while, just remember that you will need to sell it again at some point .

Ive had a few boats with petrol engines(20foot single engines up to 28foot twin engines) , theyve been more reliable , faster and cheaper to maintain than the diesels ive owned, but the amount you spend on fuel is considerably higher with the petrol boat, as you would expect. I currently own a deisel engined boat and its kind of like the fuel cost is zero in comparison to the petrols, but even though its a modern deisel (volvo d4) it still sounds and rattles like a tractor at idle.
 
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Thanks for the information. I guess it is a balance between purchase price, running costs and selling price. Would you know roughly the difference in fuel consumption between the two? I mean if you were to use your boat say for an average of 100 hours a year but cost £1000 more on fuel, but saved £500 on servicing it wouldn't be a great issue , I guess all boats will depreciate at roughly the same rate?
 
It will vary from boat to boat, engine to engine,but see below for an example using my current and previous boats.

Previous boat :21 foot sea ray with single 5.0litre v8 mercruiser mpi petrol (260hp)and single prop outdrive, would consume about 35litres per hour at cruising speed.

Current boat :25foot windy with single volvo d4 diesel engine (260hp) and duoprop outdrive, consumes about 25 litres per hour at the same cruising speed.

So 1000litres more fuel used in the petrol boat if you do 100hours per year at cruising speed. In reality you wont be spending 100hours per year at crusing speed, but the difference is significant.

I suspect that the difference becomes more pronounced the bigger the boats are, and when you start talking twin engines rather than singles.
 
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