My first motor boat

[aidanuk]

Good Afternoon All,

Im new here so first off, Hello, im Aidan!

I have read a few new boat posts as well as a huge amount of other information on here as well as much research online, im looking for some more direct information to my situation as well as any other thoughts.

So a bit about me, I spent most of my childhood holidays on family boats around the Solent (mainly Cobbs / Poole) as well as water skiing at a local lake so as a family we a quite "boaty", however we have never had any large power boats.

I'm 27 and currently have no interest in sailing myself, I go out occasionally with family or a work colleague who has a 49DS, which I enjoy but at the moment I enjoy "being sailed" rather than "sailing" myself, it that makes.

I am much more interested in spending my initial boating time with a powerboat to start, work that out of my system then when im older im sure ill get into sailing, or perhaps ill just carry on with power boats, who knows at this point.

I have a wife, a 2 year old and a new one due in Oct and its going to take me a few years to save up the required amount but I like to know what im saving / getting so I can do plenty of research in the meantime about the boat, engine, drive etc

The idea is the kids will be of a reasonable age to start then as they get older we can do more and more with them and the boat.

Birthing wise I would love a marina finger birth like I had as a kid but I cant find anywhere decent for less than 4k odd for the season (Poole harbour plus lifts in and out and somewhere to store out of season) so have resigned myself to the fact im going to have to get a swing mooring.
Currently that is possibly going to be at Brixham which is only £1,150 for 9m for the whole year which falls nicely into the affordable category.
We live in Gloucestershire so its about 2.5 hour drive which is the max I want to be doing really.

So, sorry for my life story but just felt it was a required part of explaining what I wanted really.
Im looking for a 30 foot offshore cruiser mostly for cruising out to the beach, having a blast around for 20 mins then anchoring up for lunch, a swim around the boat or too the beach perhaps and sometimes towing the odd skier or ringo.
I say 30 foot as I want to have a private cabin for me and SWMBO with enough room for the 2 kids and maybe the odd guest to stay.
Im also a big guy at 6`2 so need a bit of room.

The hard bit, the money, I recently sold an Audi A6 which was costing me a fortune as I had a sudden thought one day "Christ, I could buy a boat for this money..." so, here we are, the limit is £30k all in with surveys and any other associated costs of purchase which I should be able to amass over the next 2 or 3 years.

The research I have done so far keeps coming up with the same result for performance & size, a Bayliner 285 with a 350 MAG circa 2005 (I think the blue bit on the hull looks a bit more modern).

I was tossing up the dual diesel / single v8 and have come to the conclusion that the single v8 would be better for my first performance wise then should I want to upgrade to something bigger after a few seasons I could look at some twin diesels in a larger boat.

I should mainly be just doing 20< mile trips per day out to odd beaches then back as outlined above, the the odd trip to Poole overnight which is ~170 mile round trip, trips to Torquay and hope this on average will be £100< per weekend in fuel.
I expect about ~9 outings per season depending on fuel.

My current budget for running is about £4k PA, £1.2 swing mooring, £2k fuel (hopefully less) & up to £1k for maintenance + misc.

So, from the people who know much better than I currently, is this the right boat? right figures? etc

Thoughts and ideas most welcome.

Last on my list is SWMBO, she gets quite seasick on sail boats but im expecting this to be much less of an issue on a planing motor boat but as im sure you can imagine Im not going to go down this road before I can confirm this.

As above I have lots of access to sail boats but nothing on the power boat front, whats the best way to get SWMBO some motor boat experience on a similar size / performing boat to prove shes not going to be a problem (or need replacing )?

I think that's everything, hopefully enough (too much?) for you, if there is anything else you would like to know please feel free to ask.

Thanks in advance.

 

[gordmac]

Welcome. I suspect you may be as well to have a look about and a talk to some brokers to see what takes your fancy.

 

[Aardee]

Last on my list is SWMBO, she gets quite seasick on sail boats but im expecting this to be much less of an issue on a planing motor boat but as im sure you can imagine Im not going to go down this road before I can confirm this.

If you're planning to have the boat as a family "thing", this should be first on the list, not last

 

[Hugo_Andreae]

Welcome to the forum. Bayliner 285 is a good enough place to start but also look at Maxums, Regals, Cranchis and Sealine in that size/budget range.

I suspect you may need to allow for slightly more than £1k pa for maintenance/misc unless you plan to do the engine and leg servicing yourself.

I am presuming this sum will also need to cover insurance (likely to be around £300-£500) minimum and antifouling (£200 if you do it yourself) and lifts (unless you have a trailer). And that's assuming nothing else goes wrong.

I think £1.5k pa is probably more realistic.

 

[CLB]

I was tossing up the dual diesel / single v8 and have come to the conclusion that the single v8 would be better for my first performance wise then should I want to upgrade to something bigger after a few seasons I could look at some twin diesels in a larger boat.

I should mainly be just doing 20< mile trips per day out to odd beaches then back as outlined above, the the odd trip to Poole overnight which is ~170 mile round trip, trips to Torquay and hope this on average will be £100< per weekend in fuel.
I expect about ~9 outings per season depending on fuel.

I was thinking the V8 petrol 285 would actually be pretty good for your requirements until I read the bit about 170 mile round trips to Poole. At circa 25 knots, that boat will consume around 10 gallons per hour. If we take 150 of your 170 miles to be at cruising speed you will get through about 270 litres of fuel, plus a bot for the slower stuff at each end. Round it up to 300 and times that by the £1.40ish that marinas charge for petrol at this time and your weekend fuel bill will be around £400. If this was going to be once a year I would say fine, but 3 or 4 times and your annual fuel bill will end up more than you are looking for I would imagine. Your 20 miles day jaunts will be much more affordable, and should be well within your £100/weekend budget.

 

[lisilou]

Hi Aiden, welcome to the forum.
For sure the key here is your wife. Getting to try out the boats to see if she's comfortable with it is going to be difficult unless you know someone who knows someone. I guess visiting the various boat shows is a good place to start... they sometimes offer short blasts out on 1 or 2 boats. Is she 'on board' with the idea so far?
L

 

[CLB]

Welcome to the forum. Bayliner 285 is a good enough place to start but also look at Maxums, Regals, Cranchis and Sealine in that size/budget range.

I suspect you may need to allow for slightly more than £1k pa for maintenance/misc unless you plan to do the engine and leg servicing yourself.

I am presuming this sum will also need to cover insurance (likely to be around £300-£500) minimum and antifouling (£200 if you do it yourself) and lifts (unless you have a trailer). And that's assuming nothing else goes wrong.

I think £1.5k pa is probably more realistic.

Hugo makes some good points but I would say insurance will be circa £200-£300 and anitifouling if you DIY around £100 plus lifts (circa £400 plus lifts if you opt for professional). Lifts can be expensive so look around for the best value in your area. Engine and drive service on a single V8 if you DIY will be around £300 in parts. probably best to do at the same time as antifouling to save another lift out. Paying for a full engine and leg service could use up most of your £1000 budget. So all DIY and you might get by on £1000 including lifts. Pay to have it done and you would probably need to double it.

 

[Dorset Dan]

I was in your position last summer and bit the bullet and bought a boat late last year ("you only live once" being the idea, which is what the boat is named also). We looked at a number of boats and bought on condition a Regal 2665 with 350 mag mpi engine and bravo III drive. I think that it would tick most of your boxes apart from lack of separate cabin (although of all the 26-30ft cabin cruisers we looked at, the Regal had the best cabin layout) but I guess everyone wants a boat a little bit bigger dont't they?!?

Having had the boat for just over 6 months I would echo comments above that your maintenance budget looks on the low side and I think that you need to factor in an annual slush fund for non-routine maintenance. Our first service (boat is 2008) included replacing the risers and manifold, a new prop (hairline crack on centre housing), a new bearing hub on the leg due to corrosion, etc, etc - plus we wanted a few things fitted and very quickly our costs soon mounted up. Granted, a lot of this was due for change based on age of the boat and shouldn't be due for another 5 years (risers / manifold) but these non-annual cost needs to be factored in somewhere. I would personally factor in £2k per annum on average for maintenance for a single engine boat.

 

[aidanuk]

Thanks for the responses so far guys, I shall respond accordingly :


gordmac :

Thanks, not done any research as to where / who the best brokers are, good for walking around different boat types im sure to fine tune the selection, although 285 seems to be the most suggest so far.

Aardee :

Yes, sorry, it was last on my list for my post but most certainly first on my list during this process.
Badly worded on my part, sorry.

Hugo_Andreae :

Thanks, I have looked at some alternatives, however most seem to be 4 birth for that size, have no private cabin or be way over the budget (Sealines).
Any suggestions of exact models to look into would be greatly appreciated.

Servicing wise I have been watching lots of YT videos on Merc legs and a lot of it dost seem too difficult, im not really too hands on by I have a friend that normally helps me with these sort of things so we should be able to do something between us.
An ex boat owner suggested staggering some of the maintenance to ease costs somewhat, impella one year, bellows the next etc, something to that effect.
Haven't seen whats required engine wise yet but I assume oil, filters and the usual, part of starting the process long before purchase will allow me to review various maintenance manuals for the selected leg / engine so I can at least cover some of it myself.
Not sure on lifts yet, how often I should do it, where etc as I was planning to just keep it in the water round the year mainly.

Yes I wanted insurance lumped into that as well, i was told circa 0.5% of the value per year is a good ball park.

Not sure on he trailer front, would need a range rover or something to get a 285 in and out surly? Or would that be done by a tractor of some sort at a yard and its just for storage?

Antifouling wise I have started looking into CopperCoat (coppercoat.com), its supposed to be a once in 10 year AF job, even if you half this to 5 years it seems pretty attractive.
I dont believe its too expensive, I think it looks like it should be around the 600 mark, if it can omit a couple of lifts in and out over the years that's a reasonable saving.

Hopefully I can stick within £1k per year, if its a bit more its not the end of the world, I am trying strike a balance between having enjoyable boating & having enough money to eat

CLB :

Thanks for your thoughts, The trips to Poole would indeed be very rare, maybe once a season if at all.
Maintenance wise please see above my reply to Hugo.

lisilou :

Thanks!
She is on board, I was looking at a ski boat to play with but she said she would rather have something to stay in on the south coast, so I didn't argue
She was sick for a full 17 hour trip to france on a sail boat so shes not a huge boat far at the moment, I will indeed try and find someone to take us out for a bit for some fuel/beer money to check shes ok!
I fully agree, its all pointless if shes not able.

Regards,

Aidan

 

[rhino_mac]

I never got away with less than £2k per annum on my boat (Monterey 250CR). This was on a diesel engined boat on dry stack (so no antifoul or lifting costs).

Invariably you'll scrape something, something will break, something else will break just as you've fixed the last thing that broke etc etc. Routinely I was fixing stuck gauges, hydraulics for the trim tabs (and outdrive actually), gel coat repairs etc etc and my boat was used regularly (which is good) and pampered. You'll be replacing worn mooring lines, buying additional lifejackets for guests (or their children because you'll never have the right size on board for all the kids), upgrading the VHF.

There's no end of ways to spend money on a boat!

 

[aidanuk]

Dorset Dan :

Thanks for your response Dan, im talking sort of averages mainly, I expect some years to be more, some to be less.

Your boat looks lovely by the way.

In terms of everything you had to replace this seems a lot to of appeared in 6 months?

I will be investing in a full structural and mechanical survey of anything I buy to avoid these sorts of issues in the direct short term as the boat purchase im sure will wipe me out and have the vendor get it all back to 100% or reduce the cost to reflect my repair bill as part of the sale agreement, perhaps you were unlucky though.
I do however see your point and will ensure I keep something tucked away for things that come out to surprise us.

 

[aidanuk]

Thanks mac, it seems the consensus is £2k for the maintenance / misc category so Ill budget accordingly around this figure with some expected fluctuations.

Ill try and do as much of the work myself (with assistance) as I / we can.

I see your point on spending however some things I think would fall under "upgrades" which wouldn't really come out of the same pot, that's that bonus`s are for!

 

[SEARANGER ANCASTER]

welcome and only advice I would give you is ,whatever you buy , go for diesel engine(s). I would not consider a petrol boat for both consumption and safety reasons.

Some advice I was given when I looked for my first boat was to keep looking and the right style of boat or layout to suit you will become apparent and thereafter you will know the right boat when it comes along. Whatever you think your annual costs are going to be , double it and you will be more accurate.

And finally , with young kids , think about the safety of the boat which is the same position we were in when buying our first boat and we decided to go for a flybridge boat with rear "patio" syle doors as our daughter could be in there and we knew where she was and that she was safe when we were on the flybridge

 

[aidanuk]

Thanks SEARANGER.

I do like the safety idea of dual diesels but the saving in fuel costs I didn't think offset the massive extra cost in maintenance.

I certainly cant afford a fly bridge within my £30k budget and still have it made in this millennium!

I have had deep pockets it would be a no brainer to go for twin D`s but it looks like the economy of single V8 does make sense.
Safety wise we would only tend to go out on warm days when there will be plenty of other boats around.

I will see how long it takes me to amass the funds but I dont really want to push to 40k for a twin D.

 

[ian38_39]

Spent 8 years with petrol boats and strangely not once did they blow up or kill anyone, with a common sense approach safety on a petrol boat is a red herring. Would the worlds most litigious country also be the biggest user of petrol boats if they were unsafe?

Consumption on 170 mile runs will push your fuel budget considerably, you will realistically use up your £1000 fuel budget in 2 trips to Poole.

If you are serious about doing trips that are likely to be 4 hrs each way then you should look to Diesel but you should also increase your annual maintenance budget as diesel, even a single, will cost you more each year.

 

[aidanuk]

Thanks Ian.

It would be a rare trip once or twice in the time I would own it if it was petrol.

Even if I push the budget to 35k I dont seem to be able to find a diesel made year 2000+ for that sort of money at the size I want ~30ft.

Also can anyone comment on the diesel fuel savings and maintenance offsets against petrol?

Does it work out "a little bit more" running twin diesels over a single v8 petrol or a lot more?

Amusing you do any DIY maintenance possible.

I can also see factoring in the argument it would skip an upgrade step and all its associated costs.

 

[Machaseo]

Just my tuppence worth!
Diesel over petrol every time for me base on a few "learning moments" over the years:
Diesel is easier to come by up north, might not be an issue on the south coast
Fuel is not my biggest outgoing on the boat, berthing,maintenance and insurance combined are roughly double what i put up the lum in a year
Servicing is no more expensive, the leg end cost the same whether pertrol or diesel
Petrol engines have more "service items" plugs, leads, ignition components which dont like damp environments
Diesels more tolerant of salty / damp conditions, less service items, fuel filters, oil filters, belts, impeller and oil, job done.
I havent had to replace an injector or heater plug in 10 years of diesels spread over 3 boats, I do accept that others will have a different story to tell though.
Consider an older UK built boat over a more modern american build, build quality, gel thickness, lay up etc tends to be better. I did say consider......dont discount the yank or euro brands as they can represent great value for money.
Best piece of advice is to look at as many different boats as you can in the flesh rather than couch surfing then when you find a layout / size that suits your needs and budget come on here and tap into the wealth of collective knowledge that exists on these forums with more specific questions.
As its your first boat, i would also consider resale value as you may find yourself looking for something different in a season or two when your boating requirements change or god/allah/buddah forbid your other half hates it and insists you buy a caravan because you'll get more use out of per £ spent
Most of all enjoy the journey, it will be the second best thing you have ever done!
Regards Barry

 

[aidanuk]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the response.

Its definitely something I would consider if I could find something cost effective.

As on previous reply's I could factor in skipping an upgrade, I was also referring to servicing costs for a twin diesel setup compared to a single V8, IE 2 engines and 2 legs to deal with instead of one.

In my ignorant mind it would be a massive increase in cost to service / maintain 2 engines & legs rather than one, even with the diesel savings, or am I wrong?

 

[darrenw]

A young family and a 2.5 hour trip to the boat doesn't play well with DIY servicing and antifouling. And if outsourcing, a lift out, storage on shore, hull antifoul, leg antifoul, anode change, hull polish etc is more likely to be in the region of £1k.

 

[annageek]

To add to what lisilou said... take a look here at the introduction to motor cruising session at Southampton Boat Show: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/active-marina-experience-southampton-boat-show-tickets-17046777370 any you can get a 90 minute trip on (and chance to drive a bit) a Sealine SC29. It's not going to be the best seasickness test, but it's free (but book early) so perhaps worth a thought.

Be warned though... we took part last year (just to get a chance to have a little play on an bigger boat) and you WILL leave wanting to up your budget closer to £80k so you can buy a Sealine SC29!!