36' is nice boat for calm days on lake Michigan or running over tight chop (like the biggest that Burt or Mullett can produce). Look into an older Skater or 36 Spectre and they are reasonable money wise. They won't be like your buddys boat due the fact that the wide tunnel is much more stable in quartering seas and cross chop. If you make it out to LOTO, there are tons of inboard and outboard cats to ride in.

Joe

Just so I'm understanding....are you saying the older skater or spectre would be better or worse than his? Not sure which one has the wider tunnel? Would assume his the newer one but could be wrong?

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Something like this is what I was thinking if the link works right. It's a 36 Spectre in the classifieds on here.

For day cruising and poker running would you say this would be as good as a 35-38 fountain vee in the same water? When I say good I mean ride, comfort, speed? That's what I'll be doing with it so that's why I ask.

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This would be the ultimate for me but that's a lot of boat and hardware to maintain and think it's a little too much to use as a regular everyday pleasure boat.

I pay less for insurance on my 36/700 inboard cat than you do for your 36/450 outboard cat Joe - declared value and liability limits are probably very comparable. You can't really compare insuring a 170mph inboard cat to a 135mph outboard cat. Insurance costs on mild powered (600-700hp) inboard cats that are similar speeds to the 450 outboard cats are going to be comparable - that is my experience at least. The insurance costs really skyrocket when you start going over 150mph (my 30 was almost uninsurable when it had 800 Sterlings in it and ran 150++). I agree that fuel, maintenance and repair costs are higher on even a light-powered inboard cat, so that better ride is definitely coming at a cost. However, you can buy a used inboard cat for a lot less than a used 400 or 450 outboard cat, so the $100k+ you save on the purchase will go a long way on paying for those higher costs. As for losing your boat to downtime, unless you own spare gearcases for the 400 or 450 rigs, you'll be down as much or more than you will with an inboard cat (assuming it has #6 drives). I can't name a guy with a 400 or 450 rig that hasn't broken multiple propshafts and/or gearcases. In the past 5-6 years (since the 400 and 450 outboard cats have exploded in popularity), there have been numerous more outboard cat accidents than inboard cat accidents (both pleasure and race), so which one is safer has already been proven.

Lol, don't go buying a 46 Skater unless you plan on supporting big maintenance bills. I owned one for a few years ('19-'22, Freedom US-1) and couldn't keep motors alive in it. In fairness, I had big power (1350, not Mercury though) and ran it hard, but those big 46' 13,000 # beasts are very hard on equipment. If you stay in the 32' - 40' range with light-power (600hp-900hp) and #6 drives you can have a fairly affordable inboard cat.

I just ran across a few mild powered 36 spectres and a couple eliminators claiming over 100 with stock 500's....is that even remotely true?

If that's the route I end up on....most of those are bravo boats. That being said do these things eat bravos like vee hulls do? I have a high powered bravo boat now and even with it being a full IMCO scx variation is still makes me nervous hahhaa

Stay away from any Bravo 1 drive cat if you plan to run in the rough, they'll break those weak drives constantly. 32' and above cats need #6 drives.

Exactly my point hahahha don't think it's even feasible to call that a "pleasure cat" at that point....that's a lot of boat!!

And to be clear....this is what I'm afraid of and why I started this thread hahaha....looks pretty darn calm in the video and it just goes over???