I have a boat, 18.5 foot Glastron ski/fish combo, 190HP Volvo Penta I/O. At the place we stay, definitely smaller lake than Lake Ontario (though, just a few miles from the 1000 Islands), it's one of the nicer boats. And, from a conversation over a few beers, it seems some people sort of envy the nicer fiberglass boats, instead of their lighter, more barebones aluminum boats with outboard motors on them (same length of boat). As we discussed, we compared the gas costs - I spend nearly 3 times as much on gas for the same amount of riding around. We discussed maintenance - ditto, much more for me. We discussed the upfront cost - ditto again. I don't regret having my boat at all, and am glad I can afford to actually use it. It's a piece of cake to burn through a 30 gallon tank of gas in a day (or more) - and most of the time, if you're on the water, your choice is non-ethanol gasoline, about $1 per gallon than at a regular gas station. And, that's the perfect price point - to save $30 on a fill-up, are you going to drive to a boat launch, wait in line, pull the boat, drive to a gas station, back to the boat launch, launch the boat (2nd person required to drive vehicle)? Or, are you going to drive to a gas station and bring back a load of 5 gallon gas cans? Nope.
Last two weeks: promised my son he could have the boat for a week, and especially didn't want him to miss the first couple of days, since he was taking a Marine friend who was home briefly from Afghanistan, out fishing. So, I overnighted a $300+ part to get the boat on the water. Wrong model. So, I drove a little over 5 hours to the only Marina in NY (apparently) that had the water pump in stock; payed an extra $100 over the online price. Had to replace the bilge pump a day later; it was old and the motor went. Cheap - $25 - but a major pita to put in, unless you're anorexic and a contortionist. When I replaced the water pump, I wished I had told them I wanted the belts too; the store was open, but the parts department was in a different building and closed the day I picked up the water pump. Two or three times, the belts started squealing; I tightened them up. On the way to the dock in the middle of the week, they started squealing again; nothing I could do in the middle of the lake; 1 mile to go. Didn't make it. One of the belts self-destructed. Had to be towed in to the dock. No local dealer to get the v-belts. None of the marinas with parts had the right size - they serviced other brands; not my brand. So, a 30 minute (each way) trip to an auto-parts store. They couldn't look up the size either. So, we tried to match as closely as possible; it took three half-hour trips (each way) before I had a pair of belts that would work; missed half a day of boating/fishing as a result. 2nd week: needed to replace the sending unit for the gas gauge; the old one was reporting "full" the entire time. Again, no local dealer, but at one of the marinas, "they're fairly universal" - the 5 mounting holes matched up perfectly, though the unit was about 3/4 of an inch shorter. No problem - when it says "empty," that means I still have another 3/4 of an inch of gasoline in there, right? Great! No one will every allow it to get close and run out of gas. Well, (duh), it works on resistance. Apparently, the resistance when the new one was empty = the resistance my old unit had when it was 1/4 tank. That is, 1 mile from the dock (coincidentally, about 100 yards from where the v-belt broke), I ran out of gas, with a gauge that said 1/4 tank.
So, that's 2 weeks of boating. We could pull water tubers, skiers, etc., we could outrun most boats on the lake. Livewell (pump doesn't work; and nearly impossible to replace since it's behind the engine; so I have a secondary pump that requires me to put a hose over the side of the boat & can only be used when stationary) for all the fish we kept (all were released though), built in tackle-boxes (that I've never used in the past 8 years), trolling motor that I never use, etc. I can't wait until this weekend to get back to the boat.
HOPEFULLY, I can go a couple of days without needing to work on something in the boat, but it looks like a slight ding to the prop when some large waves nailed us when we were anchored in fairly shallow water (bounced the boat) might mean I need to replace the prop (and have this one remachined for only about $100).
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