How sturdy is a 1995 48' 486?

Looking at a 1995 48' 486 which look sto be in very good shape, but wondering how sturdy a vessel is it? Live in Seattle and woudl be heading north into some tough seas at times and really need a boat that can handle beam seas in decent shape. This woudl be my first foray into OA so looking for some input. Appreciate any insight and advice!

Ocean Alexander 486 is a tough boat. It is safe to say you will call the Coast Guard and ask for a rescue from the sea conditions long before the boat has any real issues.

It is not a heavy keeled round bottom boat, therefore it’s going to rock and roll in a beam sea. You could add stabilizers but expense would be significant. The boat has legs so you really should never find your self in bad seas unless you insist on maintaining a schedule despite the weather.

Well, our offer was accepted on the 1995 OA 48' 486 PH. Setting up survey week of 3/20 and will hopefully have things come back as we expect them to. Excited to start the journey!

Good luck with the survey.

Having a boat that really reacts to beam seas….I tack! It’s not clear to me why folks in power boats talk about boats having problems with beam seas. I have never come across a situation yet where I could not take a different line and really improve the motion of my boat. Am I missing something?

How did your survey/purchase go?

OA486AGC said:

Well, our offer was accepted on the 1995 OA 48' 486 PH. Setting up survey week of 3/20 and will hopefully have things come back as we expect them to. Excited to start the journey!

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We are curious how your purchase went.

Not the OP but I'm closing on a 94 OA 46 CMY next week. The boat is in very good cosmetic condition inside and out, compared to other 90's and 2000 era boats we looked at.



Hull survey included a longish list of minor safety nitpicks, as well as bottom paint, a shaft cutlass bearing, and a faulty trim tab.



Insurance is requiring ALL primary and secondary survey recommendations to be fixed before the boat can sail, probably about $20k in all, most of which is the bottom paint (and soda blast).


A lot of the minor stuff on the list is just how the boat was built before the latest codes, but insurance calls the tune so I dance.


Mechanical survey and oil samples were fine although the oil only had 30 hours. One engine is a couple hundred rpm below the other, but the better one had some recent fuel injector work so hopefully that's all the low one needs. CAT 3208TA 375. Yeah I'll get the aftercoolers checked. Insurance did not inquire about the engines.