CONTINUOUSWAVE

[I am a] first time poster looking for help. I [want] to buy a small boat for fishing and puttering around inland waters, and something that I can tow behind my Honda CRV to Florida from the Midwest. I would use it to fish the canals and mangroves in southwest Florida in the winter. The CRV's maximum tow weight is 1500-lbs.

A friend of mine has a 1976 Boston Whaler 11-foot Sport model with a 2000 Yamaha F15 four-stroke-power-cycle engine. It has the steering console. It is on an old trailer. Here is a fairly new bimini top. He threw out a price of $3,000.

The boat looks in reasonable condition given its age, and the motor was just recently tuned-up by a dealer and appears in good condition. But there is one serious flaw in the boat: it has a hole punched through the bottom about 6-inch in diameter where the forward roller on the trailer punched through the keel bottom. It appears the trailer was not set up properly with enough rollers to properly support it. One attempt was made to repair the hole but since they didn't modify the trailer with proper support it punched through a second time. The top half of the rubber roller is literally sticking through the dead center keel.

One other comment bothers me also. He said the boat is difficult to get up on plane with two people. I'm concerned the boat may be waterlogged.
Can this boat be repaired?

I understand these boats are foam filled. Is the foam likely to be waterlogged?

What size engine would I need for reasonable performance?

What about the price?

I'm handy and love to work on boats but is this fatal damage?

Thanks for you comments.

I would pass on that boat. If set up correctly, a 15-HP engine should not have trouble getting an 11-footer on plane with two people on board. If you really like the boat you could go through the trouble of weighing the boat to see if it is indeed waterlogged. The reference section lists the weight of an 11 Sport at 250-lbs. The fiberglass skin can be repaired. Extensively waterlogged foam cannot be repaired. There is also the possibility that running the boat with the hole forced water into the inner hull and caused the fiberglass to delaminate from the foam.

Look for a Sport 13 or Sport 15. Either should be well within your towing capacity and provide a more satisfactory boating experience.

Re the damage: it sounds ugly. A hole completely through both inner and outer hulls is significant. If the boat was operated on the water with a hole like that, the foam could be wet.

Re the price: I look at the price as the sum of the components (with these estimates of value):

--a 16-year-old 15-HP outboard ($1,000)

--a 40-year old boat with serious damage to the hull ($250)

--an "old" trailer ($100)

--an "fairly new" Bimini top ($100)

I don't see $3,000 there. At the seller's price of $3,000 you'd be paying $1,800 for the damaged 11-foot hull. I doubt there would be many buyers at that price.

Re the expected use: the 11-footer was designed as a tender. The 13-footer is a real boat. How many hours can you sit in a 11-foot boat and fish?

Re the towing capacity: at 1,500-lbs maximum you should be able to tow a 13-footer with an engine on a light trailer. The weights would be:

--13-foot hull 300-lbs (see http://continuouswave.com/whaler/reference/13/ )
--25-HP outboard, 120-lbs (see http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/011042.html )
--small trailer, 350-lbs or less

That totals about 770-lbs. Figure with some fuel and gear the loaded trailer will weigh 1,000-lbs. That should tow behind a vehicle rated for 1,500-lbs towing without too much difficulty. I don't know much about CRV's and towing. Read some CRV-oriented forums to see if that vehicle can really tow its rated load for a few thousand miles at highway speeds and over hills.

Recent Honda CRV towing capacity is around 1500lbs ~.