Waterbull

Hello everyone, this is my first post on here, I look forward to getting to know some of you better and hopefully contributing one day to the forum. A bit of background leading up to my question(s): I have a lot of experience restoring muscle and classic cars with my dad, and grew up on the water in FL. Our private shop where we work on our cars is down the road from Nor-techs catamaran outfitting and dyno cell and I've seen them on the river since before I can remember. I absolutely can't afford a Nortech, but I have some time and money to spend now and have started looking into my options.

I'm trying to get a feel for how feasible it is to buy an 'attractively' shaped hull, rebuild it (anywhere from paint, interior, all new mechanical, etc), and eventually sell it for a small profit. Everyone I've talked to says boats are money pits, and we've had several while I was growing up. I just can't get it out of my head that there are opportunities to have some fun rebuilding a hull and in the end giving someone a nice boat who may not have the expertise or time to put the work into building it.

If your still with me, am I crazy? Where do I go from here- I don't see how some baja and scarabs can go for $30k while others that seem comparable go for barely 1/2 that. what do I look out for when looking at a hull as far as desirability, features (I know the typical structural stuff)?

Mechanically: I've read bravo 1 drives can handle decent power if not abused, could I 'roll into' 600+hp and be ok, if not what affordable mods or drive do I look to? I see a lot of roots style blowers on these engines, why havnt I seen any turbos?

Thanks guys for reading these questions!

Baja_342

I've sold a few boats for more than what I paid for them, but after storage, fuel, maintenance, trucks, etc. I have never made a "profit". Most boat because they love it, not because it's a good investment.

cigrocket

iTrader: (3)

Buy a boat that runs and enjoy it, update it a little while you use it and learn. Nobody flips boats anymore and makes a profit unless you have mounds of parts from past projects. If you don't believe me others will chime in. Or you can just send me a big bag of money and ride on someone else's boat you would then be wayyyyyyy ahead.

Good luck with your endeavor and welcome to the Forums. We all love boating and it is a curse!

Waterbull

Thanks guys for the replies! I should have expanded on the term profit, maybe it should've said 'how likely am I to break even?' I want to have fun with the boat, and just want to be able to sell if for about what I've put into it but not take a loss. I have room on the side of my house and my dad's shop for storage, I have a 1 ton truck to move it and my parents are also on a canal minutes from the gulf. I'm not looking to get rich on the endeavor not by any means, just to have fun and maybe move on to bigger and better things (boats) with any 'profits' I'd make

Edit: what about underrated hulls to look for, that perform above their $ value, is it worth twins? I'm mostly inshore and on the west coast of FL, is a big boat with twins worth it, or can a single get you reliably above 70mph top speeds?

compedgemarine

the cheapest part of having a boat is putting fuel in someone else's

TCBoss302

iTrader: (3)

DON'T DO IT! IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, YOU WON'T GET CLOSE TO BREAKING EVEN! You will do better than some/me by doing your own work, but you won't get your money back.

F-2 Speedy

iTrader: (6)

I bought my first TG at a great price on a nice trailer completely rigged less engines, bought a pair of 500 EFI's new rebuilt, never been fired and put it together, used it for a summer and sold it, made good money on it, so it can be done, but a complete redo of a boat and flip it, that's a big gamble. The key IMO is to buy a boat that has history, pedigree and appeals to the masses to start with.

iliveonanisland

Listen to that dude with the red boat with that gay azz white stripe in the middle of it, in his avatar... Dont listen to the rest of these klowns that keep their boats in their moms garage.
You will want to start with an easy to sell model so you want a 41 APACHE, you will see em for sale and often find people with zero mechanical skills offering to pay you to tow their non running apaches away. Then take out a second and third mortgage to build that bad boy. Rm

Waterbull

Thanks guys for the feedback and...honesty

SkiDoc

iTrader: (4)

I had two powerboats that were powered by stock merc. power. I bought them right, they were mechanically okay, cosmetically needed some TLC. I sold them for more than I paid for them. I had another that I repowered and did it right. I lost a lottttttt of money. If you buy something with stock merc power that does not need a bunch of stuff, I think you won't lose a lot. Fixing up one can send you down the losing road.