Salt Water Opinions
 

What problems can you expect to encounter with boats used in saltwater and well maintained? Particularly boats that are 8-10 years old with 400-600 hours. What do you look for when inspecting a boat that has spent it's whole life in the salt environment? Thanks for any help.

corrosion can get nasty in salt water.

look at the exhuats manifolds if they are weeping at all on the outside chances are they are pissing water on the inside.

After a while with raw water cooling the salt eats away the block. Its take as while but it can happen. My old engien was flushed pretty regularly (by eth previous owner and myself) and the block was starting to get eaten away. Not to a poitn where it was problem but if it needed to be bored again i doubt it could go out to 60 over.

Worst part would probably be the exhaust. Manifolds and/or elbows may be near the end of their life even with flushing after each use. If the weren't flushed regularly , by now they they have probably been changed.
If it's been left in the water , electrolysis may have taken a toll on the outdrive too:(
Salt shouldn't really hurt the fiberglass , but it can sure play hell on anything metal , including wiring and connectors if they were not marine specific connectors. I friend of mine just went through that with his Rinker. Only had about 10.5 volts at the volt meter on the dash. 12.8 at the battery. Turned out to be 1/2 dozen bad connections along the way. The wiring in his was also not tinned , it was just plain copper wire.

The saltwater guys get real touchy about this but I have seen boats from florida that people bought cheap ended up needng completely disassembled and every screw, hinge, wire, connector, everything and anything metal, stainless steel too, had to be replaced.

With as many boats that are available today I wouldnt do it. KEEP LOOKING.

while we're talking about salt. always had my boat in fresh water . If I wanted to put it in salt how long can I leave it in salt water with out worring about painting it ?Would appreciate any input

Exhaust manifolds and risers first. On Pascoe's site he plainly states that the number one cause of catastrophic engine failure is leaking risers. Starters go pretty quick also being so low in the bilge. Next would be heads, the passages corode at about half the rate of the exhaust manifolds. The block passages themselves will corrode eventually. The better care and flushing the engines get, the slower they will corrode, but corrode they will. Count of it.