Or are there simply more boats for sale period – due to the economy?

I never paid attention to twin engine bowriders until recently, but there are a mess of them for sale w/in 45 minutes of me!
A search from one site...

one example

another

another

another

another

another

Maybe twin V8s are not that hard on gas and I am off base?
Or, I just happened to find a bunch of similar boats?

Seems to be a lot of 8.1s for sale as well...

Hard to say. Season is not quite started here, and it will be interesting to see how many vacant slips there will be this year.

The first year we started the slip thing, in 2002, there were maybe 2 open slips, and you had to be put on a list to get a better one.

By 2004, there were maybe 5~10 slips.

Last year (2007) there were at least 50 open slips.

Who knows this year?

I have seen several boats in the marina's brokerage that are in the 28 to 36 ft range that have been for sale for up to 2 years, but are no longer listed - presumably sold (or I suppose they could have been taken off the market as unsellable).

Or it may be that being older boats, folks are buying those, saving on the boat's cost to buy more fuel.... I dunno.

Owners may be trying to unload certain size boats more than others. I'd say the vulnerable market might very be in the 25 to 35ft range. People below that range can still afford a relatively inexpensive boat, and people above that range make enough money that fuel prices isn't as much of a concern.

In other words, maybe boating is returning for a sport for only the rich, and everyone else will have a rowboat.

Kinda apples to oranges, but my dad's old SeaRay 268 with a 454Magnum (carbed) got 1.5mpg. His 01 Chap Signature 300 with twin 5.0EFIs gets 1.5mpg.
But I would imagine those twin engine bowriders don't get very good economy compared to a single 8.1. Hard to say.
People are always getting in and out of boating. But I can very easily see more getting out now.

I guess the twin engine out around the bay area and in the ocean is a safety measure as well. Economy can be one but who except commercial fishermen etc. get into boating because it is economical.
I do believe it has been proven many times that two engines do not improve on fuel economy, not necessarily a big difference but some.
THose examples of boats for sale are interesting as that is what I was looking for in 2003 and I could not find any reasonably new 280 Bowrider for sale within our economic area.

h

I was kicking around the idea of buying a new Mastercraft X-80, which comes with twins, but I am now not in any hurry to do so.

It is still on the list though...

Dealers still have them on the lot going back to '06 models.

I wonder why???

Back when I had my 24' Reinell with twin V8's, I really didn't notice that it used all that much more gas, BUT, at the time the vast majority of my boating was pulling skiers, didn't do a lot of cruising. I would typically use 20 gallons in a whole day...

This I remember, it weighed over 7200# on the trailer, and the twins made for fairly efficient cruising--with a pair of counter-rotating 21" pitch props, mph and tach were nearly identical from 2300 rpm to redline. (3000 rpm = 30 mph). And on Lake Powell, I left the Wahweap gas pumps with a full tank, and 90-something miles later at Bullfrog it took exactly 68 gallons to fill up. The entire drive was non-stop at 30 mph.

I've noticed a lot of boats around the country have been on Yacht World for quite awhile, and many of them are dropping prices ahead of the season. I looked at one today where the price dropped $75K. Of course, that drop brought it into the area where most others in that size/year are priced.

I do see a lot of $20k-$30k price drops after the boat has been for sale for a few months. I suspect people are wanting to unload them quickly to get out from under the payment/moorage/insurance, etc.

If I were selling now I'd be dropping the price faster than a bride's nightie. I'd want to get MY boat sold now at the beginning of the season. The more boats like mine that were on the market, the faster the price drops would happen.

When the season gets under way there are many fewer sales.

How fast is that???

There may be alot of deals on boats in the market soon?!!? Maybe after the season, there may be alot more?

Doesn't seem to be much impact on boat sales from a slowing economy in our area. Maybe it's because we have great recreational lakes nearby (Folsom, Lake Tahoe). Used boat prices seem stable, similar to when we sold ours a year ago. Boats are bought with luxury money anyways. Do you really think those boats for sale are people abandoning their hobby due to a money pinch, or are they just upgrading like people always do?

Since I have one of those large bowriders (2001 Crownline 288 BR with twin 350 Mags) I can speak with experience. I burn about 8 gph on average over the 580 hours since I got the boat. Now if I do long range cruising, like on Lake Michigan, then the burn goes up to 13-15 gph but at that rate I am doing more like 40-43 mph. But if I hold at 3000 rpms then the burn rate dropes to 10-12 or so.


The the price increase of fuel has increased my hourly costs by about $8-10 an hour. That is not enough to stop me from using the boat any differently than at lower fuel prices. It just hurts more when I fill up the 130 gallon tank.

Thanks for the responses gents.
A lot of good info

IMHO a boat is something you have and use because you like it and it suits you. If gas is costing too much I use my boat a little less but would never dream of getting rid of it just for that reason. A daily driver auto, on the other hand, might be a totally different situation.

I drive by a repo yard every day and have seen an increase of all boats, Cruisers, wakeboard boats, GFBL, all except smaller bow riders.

Mark

Suppose I'm keeping my "smaller bow rider" then.

Maybe because you cannot see them under all that big 'glass?