Boatyard: Too Much Boat?
Like every boat-crazy teenager growing up in the 1960s, I had a bad case of the hots for a Donzi 16 Ski Sporter, a sexy babe magnet that, at a little short of $5,000 with a 165-horsepower Eaton Interceptor engine and a few options, was beyond my high-school budget. But I could see myself in the Donzi’s tuck-and-roll bucket seat, the Girl of My Dreams (Ginger or Mary Ann?) lounging on the wraparound bench seat, or clinging for dear life to the hand rails, as I skimmed across the whitecaps at 39 knots—advertised top speed with the Interceptor, and therefore the speed I planned to run at all the time.
It was not to be. Instead of a cherry-red Donzi, I piloted a dinged-up 12-foot aluminum skiff with a used 10-horsepower Evinrude—not a babe magnet by any definition, but still lively enough for a thrilling ride on a choppy day, and fast enough to get me into trouble now and then. I had just as much fun as the rich kids with their fancy speedboats, and at a fraction of the cost. The metal skiff withstood abuse—beaching, inadvertent piling strikes, fish blood, spilled soda, the occasional swamping—much better than the Donzi would have. A few bucks filled the 6-gallon tank, which would keep me going for a couple of summer afternoons messing about. The two-stroke ‘Rude always started on the first or second pull, and asked for very little maintenance and repair—mostly just a set of plugs now and then. I don’t recall it ever breaking down. It was just the right boat for me at the time, and, y’know, I wouldn’t mind owning it today.
That aluminum skiff, and the many summers I bounced it all over eastern Long Island waters, taught me a lesson that has served me well for decades since: What you want isn’t necessarily what you ought to have—the smart choice is something that fits your needs, even though raw desire says “Give me more!” I don’t want to sound like an aging hippie. I’m not giving up all my possessions to go back to living on the land, I have no plans to move into a yurt and I don’t have a ’65 VW Microbus in the garage awaiting restoration, but I think, when considering upgrading your house, your car, and even your boat, it’s worth asking, “Is smaller and/or simpler better?” Sure, my egotistic brain wants a bigger, faster, flashier boat, just like yours does, but my sensible brain, the one trained back in my Donzi-less youth, warns me against lusting after too much boat. (So does my wife.)
Size Isn’t Everything
No matter what size vessel they own, most people have “Two-foot-itis,” and it’s why builders populate their product lines with models two or three feet apart in length—customers can move up in manageable increments. But, eventually, rather than getting more fun from their newest, longest boat, many folks find it’s too much—too much effort needed to leave the slip (all those yellow cords to coil), too much boat to handle with only a spouse and/or kids as crew, too much fuel burn, too much maintenance, too many equipment breakdowns, and overall too much expense and too many headaches. They’ve gone a boat too far, and the latest, and often last, one ends up spending most of its time in the slip. I’ve seen this happen again and again, and it’s sad. Why do this? Do you really need a couple of feet more? Most folks would have just as much fun with a couple of feet less.
How big a boat do you need? One just big enough to let you enjoy the kind of boating you do most of the time. If you plan on buying a bigger boat so you can do different things, make sure you really want to do those things, and will do them often enough to make it worth the cost. Don’t buy a new boat just for cruising during your vacation weeks; you can charter a boat for that—and you might discover you don’t like cruising as much as you thought you would. The boat you own should be one that’s ideal for what you do most of the time. It should be safe and comfortable for your home waters during the boating season, have enough deck and cockpit space for all your normal crew to find a comfortable, secure spot to enjoy being afloat, and have sufficient stowage areas for fishing gear, diving gear, or whatever you need for your particular activities. Most boaters can forget the cabin—other than an enclosed head compartment and a few lockers for your stuff, it will go mostly unused other than as stowage space. And cooking? Ask Mom how much she really enjoys that well-equipped galley with oven—I’ll guess she’s not that crazy about it. Who wants to cook on a boat, anyway? It’s bad enough doing it at home.
What about berths? How often do most people actually sleep on board? Typically, boat owners cruise much less often than they planned to when they bought the boat. Take a look at the cruising boats in your marina—how many stay out overnight? Instead, berths become collectors of extra clothing and gear, along with decorative pillows that your friends gave you when you bought the boat—it all winds up on the cabin sole if there’s any sea running.
What most of us really need is more cockpit, a bigger helm station with comfortable chairs, a head compartment roomy enough for changing clothes, and ample stowage for stuff you want to keep aboard-—fishing rods, etc. Boatbuilders have finally acknowledged the non-usage of sleeping quarters by most boat owners, hence the recent proliferation of large center-console boats with plush on-deck seating and lounging fore and aft, maybe a grill and wet bar, and a functional head compartment with stowage in the console. You get more boat that you’ll actually use, but in less overall length, so it’ll be easier to handle, won’t require so much power and your slip will cost less. No cabin means you don’t need air conditioning, which means you don’t need a generator, which cuts down on repairs and maintenance. The more systems a boat has, the more breakdowns and maintenance, so don’t pay for “features” that you don’t need; they will just give you trouble down the road.
How Much Power Is Enough?
When it comes to maintenance, nothing sucks up resources like multiple engines, so decide how much power you really need. If your boat is just a boat and not some kind of Freudian symbol, you don’t need as much as some manufacturers want to sell you. Just because you can fit multiple motors on the transom or in the engine compartment doesn’t mean you have to, or even that you should. Sportboats with four, five, maybe six big outboards are about more than just speed, according to my psychiatrist. If that’s what floats your boat, go for it, but unless you plan to race, they’re seldom necessary. Quads and quints will go faster at the top end than twins and triples, but most folks spend most of their time at less than wide-open-throttle, so in practice the extra juice isn’t always worth the squeeze. And the more engines, the higher initial cost, the higher maintenance cost and the higher fuel cost. If maximum top speed is your only consideration, buy a Ferrari.
It’s generally most efficient to get the required total horsepower from as few engines as possible—less weight and less drag from underwater gear or lower units. Two 600-horsepower outboards will usually be more efficient than three 400-horsepower and twin 400s might be better than triple 300s. Note however, big, high-tech outboards are super expensive, so those twin 600s will likely cost more initially than triple 400s. Will you make up the difference in operational cost over the years? Crunch the numbers before you spec your new boat. Now that even the smallest boats can fit a bow thruster to help with maneuvering, a single engine is often enough, unless you’re a speed demon. If you want to head miles offshore for fishing, you need the speed and reliability that multiple engines give, but for afternoon cruising in local waters, a single engine boat with a bow thruster is often the best choice. And you’ve cut engine-maintenance costs by 50 percent or more.
Don’t think I’ve become a go-slow fuddy-duddy, or that there’s not still a kid inside me who wants that Donzi. One of the advantages of spending almost 40 years writing about boats is, I’ve had the chance to spend time aboard many that I would otherwise have been drooling over to this day. But when it comes to laying out my own money, I want a boat that’s not just a thrill ride, but one that suits all my boating needs. I want to mooch around my home waters, do a little casual fishing now and then, spend a night at anchor now and then. I don’t like varnish, I don’t want to spend lots of time cleaning, and if I slip up and whack something in docking, I want a nice, fat rubrail to take the impact. Maybe you’re like me, or maybe you want something completely different, but be true to yourself, and be careful not to go a boat too far.
But if you see a well-maintained Donzi 16 for sale, drop me a note. I’ve got that five grand now.
Keep Your Logs
The best way to know how you use your boat is by keeping a log—actually, two logs: A ship’s log that records trips, and a machinery log to keep track of repairs and maintenance. Don’t trust yourself to remember the details; nothing beats writing it down at the time.
Your ship’s log will record the date of each voyage, starting point, destination, number and names of people aboard, engine hours at beginning and end, courses steered, weather—anything that you think will be important. You don’t need a fancy leather-bound logbook with an anchor embossed on the cover; a simple notebook will do. Lay it out any way you want to, and keep a space open to record unexpected events, problems, whale sightings, etc. At the end of the season, reading over the log will both tell you how you actually used your boat, which helps with deciding if you need to move up, and remind you how much fun it is to go boating. Too many people today have stopped using pen and paper and turned to electronic logs—don’t be one of them.
In the machinery log, record the operating hours on the engines and generator when you change the oil and filters, replace impellers and perform other maintenance. Note the date, time and hours when something breaks down, when you hear a strange noise coming from under the valve cover, when you repack the stuffing box, and so forth. Include all systems in the machinery log, not just the engines—when you last cleaned the air-conditioning strainer, for example. A machinery log showing proper maintenance will help bolster your case with the manufacturer if something under warranty breaks down, and with the boatyard if there’s a recurring problem they supposedly solved. You can’t go wrong with writing things down.
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This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/maintenance/boatyard-too-much-boat
