Offshore boats..... tell me the pros and the cons

[RifleBowPistol]

Cost a lot
Lot of upkeep
Need two + engines to be safe
Not good for skiiing etc


Positive
Offshore fishing is fun

This is pretty much dead on, don't know why the skiing was thrown in there. I will add, burns a lot of fuel.

If you let them sit, thinking I don't have the time or money to go out now, and do that for six months or more. When you do decide to go out, you will wind up spending two or three weekends fixing the boat up, so it is able to go out again. As long as you keep using them, things don't rot so bad. When you let them sit, the will rot and fall apart. I rebuilt our boats multiple times.

[RifleBowPistol]

I have a 31’ mako I’d make you a heck of a deal on. Needs a little tlc
361-215-3690
Shoot me a text if interested

That would be a dream, if I lived on the coast still and could really make use of it.

[Capt Glenn]

The major negatives are the price of the game and the limited days that are fishable. I don't know what you do for a living and what your schedule is like but you really need to be able to drop everything and go when it gets right. You can't really just plan on fishing offshore on the weekend or two a month that you have free. You'll rarely get to go and you will sit at work sick watching the reports of flat seas and huge catches only to be greeted by 4-6'ers on the weekend.

The cost to really do it right is up there. Everything related to offshore fishing is expensive. A decent boat that will do a good job offshore is going to be way more than $15k. You can find old boats for that but then how reliable will they be? I can almost guarantee they will be money pits with never ending issues in that price range. $15k doesn't get you much in the boat world.

The other con is that it is a whole lot of work. Getting ready, keeping the boat up and then cleaning up after fishing. Everyone wants to go offshore fishing when you have a boat. Everyone is willing to throw you some gas money. But none of them really understand what that trip really costs. Throwing a few $20's in the hat for gas money isn't even beginning to scratch the surface. And not many want to stick around to scrub the boat and get it cleaned up and put away after the trip is over.

The positive is that it's fun. It's exciting. If it's your thing it's worth the headaches and money.

[K. Lane]

Cost a lot
Lot of upkeep
Need two + engines to be safe
Not good for skiiing etc


Positive
Offshore fishing is fun

two + engines is unnecessary

[RifleBowPistol]

It seems to be rough most of the year. July-September is generally pretty good weather but there are no guarantees. I run a 33’ that will handle some pretty rough conditions but fuel consumption goes way up and range goes way down. My next boat will be 40+. If you can’t fix it don’t buy it because something is always broken. If you have to take it to a shop you have at least a one month wait. If that month starts mid July you miss a big portion of your best weather. With that said when you have weather like this week you can have some epic trips. I spend probably 3 days on maintenance for everyday I fish between the boat and trailer. It keeps the boat ready and in top condition.

Yes, this is very accurate. Taking a small boat out when the waves are big, results in you using a lot of throttle and burning fuel, like someone took a hole saw to your gas tank. If you do get a smaller boat to take out which, I would not take out 60 miles. Add a lot of fuel capacity, or you may wind up in Mississippi, Mexico or Africa, you really never know. If I was going out 60 miles, I would want at least a 28 ft. boat, 35 ft. would be a lot better. The longer and deeper the hull, the better it will handle those big waves, you won't burn as much fuel.

I can tell you crazy stories about taking our 21 ft. boat out, when the waves were big. It was fun, but we went through fuel fast. Then there were a couple of times we or I almost sent the boat to the bottom very quickly. One situation was pretty wild and crazy, but we survived, we came very close to not surviving. It was a result of having to use a lot of throttle to get up a wave, then gave it too much and wound up catching a lot of air, then slammed forward hard, when we landed. Slammed the throttle wide open, then launched off of another wave wide open. That was a very hard landing. Then finally was able to pull my self up enough to slam the throttle shut, as we were going up the third wave. When you do that, the bow dives. HARD! Now what you want to do when going up a huge wave. We went through the wave, literally. I was on the floor of the boat looking up and saw we punched a hole through the wave, there was probably 10 ft. of wave above us. I about sh1t, I just kind of froze. It was cool looking, at the same time being extremely scary. Thinking as soon as the boat slowed enough, all that water was going to fill the hole we just punched, when that happened we were going straight to the bottom. We punched out the other side of the wave. So it was very cool stuff, but I ain't going to try that again.

For big water, you should get a big boat.

[Quackerbox]

two + engines is unnecessary

LOL

while I done off shore with a single engine boat more times than one with twins I couldnt disagree more. When we did it, boats with twins wasnt that common for the average man. Now days twins are as common as VHF radio back in the day. Hell theyre building boats with 6 400s now

The only way to consistently fish the range the OP is talking about with a single engine boat is with a buddy boat or a good sat phone and tow boat policy.

[Atfulldraw]

I'm headed out offshore tomorrow in my favorite boat....someone else's.

I packed a small overnight bag, my fanny pack tackle box, and my wallet for gas money.

My boat and its two motors will be safely tucked away in its lift.

[Chase This!]

I keep getting the itch to get an offshore boat. I love it out there, and this last week was great conditions. Tell me the pros and cons, and what to look for in a used boat. I see lots of boats in the 10 to 15k range that appear sea worthy/reliable. Is that realistic? I would want to be able to run out around 60miles.

It is absolutely not realistic. There is no $10k to $15k boat sea worthy to travel 10nm into the gulf, let alone 60.

[friscopaint]

I ran a 23 ft Boston whaler single engine outrage for about 10 years, fuel was my main concern, so I replaced the fuel tank to 150 gallon and repowered with a 250 Yamaha
It was a very steady workhorse, $15000 is cutting it thin, I concentrated on superb electronics and redundancy, 2 gps , 2 vhf , 2 different frequency depth finders
Don’t be afraid to search for boats out of state ( Florida, Alabama, North Carolina) good luck
With your search twinvee cat makes a great boat if you want to run smaller twin engine boat, speed = higher budget and maintenance, trip cost

I like the twin vees, one nice thing about the cat style boats is the twin motors are less HP due to the ride characteristics of that style of boat. We went way off shore Florida panhandle, 26 ft cat style with twin 140 hp susuki's, a mono hull would have been twin 200's if not more. Guide has lived there his whole life. Boats I'm looking at are around $100k

[friscopaint]

Guys I know went offshore with guide out of Galveston, hit a floating log on the way out and limped back on the other engine, took out lower end on one motor. I like redundancy when it comes to something like that.

[txpitdog]

The hidden cost is, as Capt Glenn said, the time. Always something needing to be cleaned, tightened, replaced, maintained. Bigger boat means bigger expenses. And it’s not just the boat that requires maintenance, it’s the trailer, and storage cost. For 15k, you are likely to get a boat that’s in great condition with engines that need to be replaced (likely another $30k+ minimum).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Mayhem]

Not a chance i would go offshore with a single engine $15k boat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dbaio1]

IMHO for offshore your budget needs to be double that plus.

[Mexico]

two + engines is unnecessary

Absolutely not... just carry extra paddles so the whole crew can get in on the fun

[rjtkdplus]

IMO if you’re on a budget you should not own an offshore boat.

Charter with professionals on a big boat and enjoy the fishing. This way you don’t have to worry about the mountain of work and money involved. Maintainence, cleaning, repair, insurance, etc.