My ole Mammy used to tell me that free advice was worth every penny you paid for it, and I’ve come to understand the meaning of that the hard way.  In my last blog I talked about the difference between sailors and power boaters, but the notion of differences goes much deeper than between wind and gas power.  Sometimes just being new to boating is problem enough.  That ties into my comment about free advice.

When I first decided to become a boater, one of the first people I talked with was a long time friend—we date back to our meeting in Vietnam, and we weren’t there for vacation—who had been a boater since he was a kid.  I called him and told him what I was doing and how I was going to go about it, and he had one emphatic piece of advice:  don’t buy a used boat.

That was it, plain and simple.  Seems he had just had a very bad experience with a used boat; he didn’t want me to have a similar experience with my first boat.  I trusted him, valued his opinion, and began my search with that idea in mind.  The problem is, his opinion only covered about 10% of the issues involved with buying a boat.  He never mentioned cost, maintenance, or physical configuration.  I’m not sure where he expected me to collect those bits of information, but I went forth with a fixed amount of money and the understanding that new was the only way to go.

Now, nearly five years later, I’m the proud owner of an excellent express cruiser; but I don’t want to be an express cruiser boater.  I learned that in a rather odd way:  I had engine trouble one day last year and my wife and I enjoyed the single-engine run back to the marina more than we’d enjoyed any previous trip.  We love cruising along at 9 knots!  The trip from Kent Narrows to Rock Hall was an hour and a half of warm sun, smooth seas, and great sightings.  That’s why I have my boat on the market.

The experience of cruising home at 9 knots got me to thinking and putting together pieces of what I’ve learned.  Primarily, it got me to thinking about a couple of top notch surveyors I’d interviewed last year, Art Johnson and Fred Wise.  Maybe my friend would have been better able to advise me if he had known either of these two gentlemen.  Maybe my friend would have told me what I really needed to hear:  don’t buy a used boat unless you know of an outstanding surveyor who will give you a reliable evaluation of what you’re looking at.  That would have been information I could have taken to the bank—along with the savings I’d have realized by buying a used boat.

So here’s my advice:  buy what suits your personal boating style, be it a slow cruising trawler or a zip-zipping go fast boat; but don’t buy based on the age of the boat.  Try out different types of boats, figure out what you’re comfortable with, and work with a surveyor—pick the person carefully; your choice of surveyor will be nearly as important as your choice of boat.