Well, given the thousands of new and used boats available on the market, the prospective boat buyer faces a bewildering task.
How, amid the hype and hoopla, conflicting claims, and relatively limited access to authoritative knowledge, can the average buyer come up
with the right boat?
A cynic might say that it doesn't really matter what boat you choose.
But you and I know, that's not true.
They are all too expensive, they all break, and you're likely to use it so little anyway that it's not going to kill you, so just buy a boat
and go boating.
It is possible, however, to determine needs and abilities, weigh the options carefully, and with a little luck and a lot of perseverance come
up with a boat that exactly fills the bill.
Or at least, a boat that comes reasonably close to filling the bill, for few boaters, even if they build they boat of the their dreams, are
capable of coming up with THE BOAT.
There are two big questions to be answered when looking for repossessed boats for sale: how will it be used and what will it cost? Implicit in
those two big questions is an almost endless array of other questions, some of which are easily answered; others will always remain
unanswered.
How will It be used?
When choosing a boat, you must be ruthlessly realistic about what you will do with it. Will you primarily day sail with the family, with
occasional day racing? Is weekend cruising high on the list of things you want to do? Are you really going to take that trip to Hawaii or
Bermuda, or is that a dream 10 years down the line?
Obviously, a heavy, underrigged ocean cruiser is out of place on a lake. Less obviously, it may be out of place in many coastal light-weather
areas, too.
Choose a boat suitable for most of the boating you do. You'll never find a boat that's perfect for all your boating. If 90% of your boating is
skiing or tubing on summer weekends in protected waters, buy a boat that is at its best in those conditions.
This may require considerable downscaling of your dreams.
To some extent, almost all of us consider the boat be some means of escape from the routine.
Above and beyond the recreational aspecst of the boat, it functions as a psychological cushion between the reality of the 40 hour work week
and the dream of escape.
Too often, perhaps, the dream dominates reality when the time comes to spend hard-earned dollars.
This situation is hardly helped by much of the boating industry’s advertising, which touts every boat under 25 feet as an easily handled
trailer boater with plenty of room for a family of five and two dogs. The industry also gets great mileage by playing on our dreams, so that we
frequently end up with a boat more suitable for the type of boating we’d like to do than the boating we really do.
One reason that a particular brand or model may be more popular than another comparable boat is the quality of the local dealer. Dealers, like
boats, vary tremendously. Some dealers give excellent after-sale service, organize local racing or cruising, and give dockage or storage priority
to the boats they sell. In this way, they develop customer loyalty that is translated into future sales. Another dealer may give great service
before the sale, but give you the cold shoulder after he has your money in hand.
The only way to be sure about a dealer is to ask people who have bought repossessed boats for sale from him. No one likes to get ripped off, and
the boatbuyer who feels mistreated is usually more than happy to talk about it.
It pays to talk to more than one of the dealer's customers, however. The dealer is not always at fault in a transaction that goes sour. If he
has a consistently poor reputation, though, there's likely to be more than a grain of truth to the complaints.
