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Old 05-08-2021, 10:22 AM   #6
Juliet 15
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City: Bellingham
Vessel Name: Knot Hours
Vessel Model: Hatteras 58 LRC
Join Date: Feb 2019
Posts: 266
My 2 cents FWIW:
Take your time settling on a boat. It takes years to learn all the differences between boat makers, pros and cons, fiberglass types, engine mfrs and types. Many of us are on our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th boats. Following your direction you may not have the luxury of learning by buying the wrong boat 2 or 3 times. You lose money every time. So my advice would be to know what your boat really needs to do, list those out (which you've started nicely), then ruthlessly compare it to every boat you see. Over the next 16 months I feel you should spend as much time as possible looking at Yachtworld, doing searches, reading every ad that has a boat mildly close to your requirements, and then researching every term, mfr, and engine you see there. Every term you don't understand, fuel and water tank sizes, layouts, etc. I learned the most valuable things by reading Yachtworld ads. Doing so produced questions that I needed to learn answers to. I thot I fell in love with THE boat probably 20 times throughout the learning process. Over a 3 year period the right vessel slowly surfaced and became the clear "right choice" for us. The only choice, in fact, that met our requirements.

If you're not an experienced boater, you can still become a studied expert on boats, like a guy who knows the pros and cons and stats of a football or baseball player - he may not play the game, but he knows what "good" and right looks like. And it's worth it. Live without regrets. Best of luck to you.
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