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Old 02-18-2012, 08:31 AM   #21
Arctic Traveller
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City: Juneau Alaska
Vessel Name: Arctic Traveller
Vessel Model: Defever 49 RPH
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 607
RE: Advice on Choosing a Boat

Do you play cards, dice, poker or slots?* If so, you probably do everything you can to increase the odd's in your favor before you place the bet. Still, no matter how much homework you do to get the odd's in your favor, at some point you have to place your bet.* After that, it doesn't take too long to determine if youv'e won or lost that round.* Buying a boat is pretty similar, but you can do far more to put the odds in your favor than you can when pulling the slot machine handle.* The best thing you can do is to educate yourself on all things related to boats. Read all the books you can on mechanical and electrical systems, take a diesel repair class, hang out at boat yards and ask questions, volunteer to work on museum boats, take an automotive repair class, join the owners club and ask current owners lots of questions.* Go to the owners club gatherings and get on as many boats as possible and ask questions.* The more informed you are, the better chances you will get the right boat for your budget and desires at a price you are comfortable with.

Brokers are a good source of pricing information. Most can pull up past sales of similar boats for the last few years.* While there is no way to determine the condition of those boats, the more expensive ones probably were in much better shape than the least expensive ones.* Try to determine where the boat your interested in falls and offer accordingly.

Surveyors are all over the map quality wise.* Ask for references and then call those references, but realize no one would give you give you bad references so don't expect to hear that someone's survey missed a lot of expensive problems. Ask everyone you can who they used and if they would use them again.*

Ultimately, once you have educated your self as much as possible, you have to place your bet and roll the dice. If you've done your homework properly you stand a much better chance of coming out a winner.* Meanwhile enjoy the process, it's as much fun as actually owning the boat and it's much less expensive......Arctic Traveller

Trawler training at www.arctictraveller.com

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