When looking for boats, many of us have traveled miles to look at a "clean" boat only to be disappointed.

My worst was, 5-6 years ago. After talking w/ dealer and looking at e-mail photo's I told the wife I was driving 18 hrs west the next day to look at this boat and maybe tow it home. I was going to go with just my son & myself as it would be a very hard weekend. She said you're not buying a boat with out me. We all drove 18 hours, I looked at the boat for 10 minutes and said no thanks and left.

My wife couldn't believe it. On the way home she questioned my wisdom. We were all tired & I made the mistake of saying "well I didn't invite you to come along in the first place" That my friends started a fight.

So anyway.........I was thinking, OSO has guys everywhere. Could we build somekind of network? Say an OSOer from NY wants to look at a boat in Mich. He checks our register, sees whose close and asks them to take a quick look. If its as descibed he makes the trip, if not saves time & $.

I'd be happy to drive a few hours now & then to help a brother OSOer. We'd have develop some kind of checklist and rating system for a quick visual check.

Whadaya think?

Ive seen guys on here do that for others all the time.

its always good to help out others

agreed

Yup, we've been doing that for a while.

Always glad to help out. if Im in the hood.

ask and yee shall receive.

I'm always looking for a good excuse to look at a boat.

I looked at one for a guy in Texas several years ago, and told him exactly what I saw, and I thought it was a damn good deal. He came down and bought the boat, and was very happy. I think he still has it.

If someone asks for something to be looked at in my area, I'm more than willing. I love looking at boats.
But, I'm certainly no surveyor. All I can offer you is an opinion, I'm sure that someone looking at an OL, MTI, Skater, etc... is going to have a different criteria than me - whereas, I'm currently shopping for something likely to be 20-25 yrs. old. I expect it to be a little bit of a project even if advertised as "turn-key".

You may also need a checklist for what kind of buyer you are.

1). If it floats I'll buy it.
2). If it floats and is pretty, I'll buy it.
3). If it floats and runs, I'll buy it.
4). I want a trailer queen to buy a lot of cool parts to install on it. I'm not going to actually use it.
5). I'm so anal that if I find one screw in the rub rail under 20 ft/lbs torque I won't buy it.
6). If it has a #1 on the side I'll buy it.
7). If it has a beak, and you can confirm that, I'll buy it.
8). If it's an APACHE... oh nevermind...
9). I'm going to pull the motor's anyway, because I already am having a set of 8 million HP's being built. Just make sure the drives are 3a's.
10). I'm going to pull the motor's anyway, and install something to make it more tame. I can't handle all that power.
11). I'm from Jersey.
12). No matter what I buy, I'm going to come on OSO and post countless threads about who sold me a POS, and post pictures of the tiniest details of why I'm not happy with the boat.

OSO is a network. All you have to do is ask man....... everybody else does.

if you know of any buyers that are 1,2,3,7, and 11 please send them my way

I will always look for someone anytime within reason of distance and give a ture account of what I have seen, just ask. Upstate N.Y. area and 1000 ISLANDS