AIR TIME

run away fast, if you buy it your stuck with it. forever. it looks like a cross breed of a baja 40/ 38 fountain/wind fairing of a sutphen. to be safe you need to be in 5 or 6ft of water. because of logs rocks and weeds that grow in lakes. theres no trim to adjust your ride either. top speed maybe 45. theres lots of deals out there. I have friends that picked up boats for under 20 grand being a 35 cig/ 33 sutphen/31 formula two out of the 3 way under 20gs. I have never herd of that boat your looking at put if you want to run 70 or 80 it will never happen in that thing. run run run away and look for a i/o boat. see yah art

articfriends

iTrader: (1)

I have to agree with Art, unless you are in love with the boat and can get it for pennys on the dollar uuyou will own it and regret it eventually. I have a good friend that bought a 28 or 30 footer v-hull that was built with JETDRIVES, another abortion!!! The thing barely breaks 45 mph and gets horrendous mileage with twin big blocks, He can hardly keep motors together as they have to run flat out just to get boat on plane and keep it there, the boat can't keep the drives loaded in any thing other than flat water either! The builder must have been smoking the good stuff when they designed his boat He has tried to sell it as long as he has owned it, the previous seller had it for sale for YEARS, Just my opinion though, Smitty

darkostoj

well I took the 5 hour round trip and looked at it today.

Well...its a crapshoot to be honest and I don't know what to do. The boat looks like it was barely ever ran and been sitting for a long time. The engines sounded good, but the boat does need some misc touchups. There was no radio, the gauges were reading funny, and some other misc stuff.

the boat itself seems to be under a 8' beam and almost looks like a cheaply put together boat...almost like a starter boat or a lower quality boat.

The trailer was very nice.

It had 2 crusader engines that were painted all black??? I thought they were supposed to be blue....the carbs were still blue??? Also it was still carbed, I found it odd that it wasn't EFI for a 1997

Overall the hull was nice and the boat didnt look like it was worn down or weathered too badly.

I have been pricing out boats for a little while and it seems almost impossible to get another boat that can compare to this one on price. It comes with a good trailer, its 35', its a 97 compared to a lot of the 80's models, and its overall in pretty good shape. Also one thing about the boat is that it was so unbelievably simple there was absolutely nothing to it. Very very very simple wide open design...which i kind of like to be honest.

I offered him 15k cash and he turned it down, he said he would take 20k. I'm thinking if I offer 17.5k he would bite but i'm not sure. It was a very odd person, he said he has had some severe health problems and really needs to sell the boat...but when I looked at it he was drinking beer and had a pretty good buzz going......

Its a tough decision, it seems you get a lot for your $$$ with the boat...but the guy just seemed a little too shady.

Is there anyway I can look up the hull number to check if there have been any claims, or anything funny going on with it to just be sure?

I think I'm going to probably take it if he accepts the $17.5k offer. I don't think I can get anything comparable for that price.

northernoffshore

Hull 5,000, trailer 3000, motors trans and drives 8500, . could you sell the parts for that?

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

interesting boat, i would just look at it as a performance cruiser. If you are happy with whatever speed it goes like it is then you'd be fine but i wouldnt put dime one into trying to improve speed. With that set up theres not much your gonna be able to do with it. Seems like it could be a lot of boat for the money but i would put a for sale sign on it the day ya got it. Buyers are gonna be few and far between on something like that though, your gonna own it for a loooong time



btw i see depth was a concern but i doubt that is any deeper then an outdrive boat. If there are other V drive cruisers in your area then i wouldnt worry to much about it.

SkiDoc

iTrader: (4)

Do a sea trial before you buy. I like V drives, but make sure your happy with the performance before you buy. Nothing is a good deal if you don't like it.

darkostoj

in all honestly I look at this boat primarily as a first boat. I'm not really that concerned about performance, if the boat can get to 45-50 and not break I'm happy with it.

Also I'm surprised everyone is saying that this boat is something that I'd end up with for a long time? It seems so cheap, and it really is a lot of boat for the money. I feel like under different circumstances if the boat was not 5 hours away from the boating scene in michigan, the small issues were fixed, boat was in the water for test drives, and the seller wasn't shady it would sell fast.

For a first boat i'm primarily looking for something I can use for a year or two and then sell without losing a lot of money, and the positives of the boat outweigh the negatives for me right now. Its very simple so there isnt much to go wrong on it hopefully, the vdrives are a lot more reliable so I don't have to worry about sinking more money into it, and its a 1997 which relatively is a newer boat compared to the other ones I'm working on.

I just hope I can figure out a way to get the hull ID number checked out somewhere to make sure they are no stories, and I'm going to work on picking this thing up this week if everything else checks out.

If worse comes to worse I own a salvage yard so I part things out for a living.

tizbad4

I concur with Air Time I stopped and looked at it last fall and if I recall the cabin needed a lot of work the trailer was about 6’ to short and it needed interior, Guages, and was sitting uncovered for a long time, I think the boat runs about 50mph. But………… If you just have to have it I would get a surveyor involved.

Out There

Surveyor definitely. Who knows how this boat was built? If you had some guys that really knew the manufacturer and the quality they built that is one thing. Otherwise, I would treat it as a home made boat.
Good observation on no fuel injection in 1997. Where did those motors come from and how old are they?
If you have a structural issue or one of the motors blows the entire deal becomes a bad one.
There are too many outstanding deals right now on boats that are built by known manufacturers. I would plan to spend a bit more money up front on a "known quantity". No matter what you do to it, is still was built by an unknown manufacturer with a drive system that is very old on that style boat.
How's that for some negativity! Assume the worst and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised.

darkostoj

when did you look at it last fall? I saw the boat for sale in january but didnt know he had been selling it for that long?

it seems like there are a lot of deals out there to be had, but even if I did come across one I wanted to try and keep the boat under 20k....I dont think i can get close to what this boat offers for that price range.

Having said that I am not jumping into this blind, I'm weighing all my options. Even though the boat isn't optimal, an off brand, needs touch-ups, owned by a shady guy, etc I'm mechanically inclined and the boat is down right built like a dinosaur....old simple technology.