Looking at new boats

Being of the age where retirement is on the near horizon I've been looking around for a new boat. Nothing fancy, just the typical 3 bench seat 14 footer that can handle a 10hp motor or so.
A quick FB search didn't find anything that I cared to deal with and most lacked paperwork anyhow. I started looking at what's available new. The first thing I found is that there no local boat dealers selling any of the more common brands and the locally sold brands don't make a traditional bench seat boat.
None of the dealers that I called would give me a price or tell me what they had in stock and I wasn't driving 100 miles just to find out they didn't have what I wanted.
To make a long story shorter after calling 11 dealers or so I found one who said they had a new SF14DLX in stock with a split bench configuration. I had other business in the area so I stopped to see what they had.
They failed to tell me that the 'new' boat they had is a 2019 model and that its $6,100 plus tax and a 'loading fee',
They said that basically no one still makes a 3 bench seat style aluminum boat anymore and the models they do have are all from the last production run in late 2019. If I paid cash they'd discount it to $5,900.
In 1987 I bought a new Starcraft SF14 with a Mariner 9.9hp two stroke and a fuel tank for $1,500 cash on a new Sealion trailer.
Luckily I still have that trailer because a new trailer seems to be $1,500 these days,

I was sort of hoping to find a deal on a left over but they want the same price for the leftovers as a new boat and since they didn't sell the last batch of boats they aren't ordering any more until the existing inventory is gone.

The prices of the new hulls make the 1985 Starcraft SF14 the guy down the road wants $2,400 for with a rusted trailer and in need of a new transom look like a bargain.

I get it that things are higher 30 years later but $6k for a bare aluminum hull row boat is insane.
No wonder there's no boats out on the water over the past few years.

I see dozens of boats listed for $1k to $3k but almost every one has no paperwork or no title.
The DMV will no longer issue a title for an abandoned boat here. Only the titled owner can get a replacement title so all of those boats are useless if not stolen or boats with leins on them. Since getting a replacement title these days requires a trip to a regional DMV by the titled owner the chances of someone who no longer wants the boat will take a day off work to spend it in line at the DMV to get a new title for $80 is just never going to happen so no title, no deal. trailers however are not an issue here since they don't title trailers and none ever have any papers since when they are new, the state exhanges the c/o for a regustration and all proof of ownership is gone.

Are any manufacturers still building the standard old three bench seat deep 14ft boat these days? The nearest to a bench seat model in a premium brand is a Smokercraft Alaskan for $6,100 for a '22 left over 14ft bare hull but the weight ratings now I see are also way down? a 15ft Smokercraft Alaskan is only 465lbs. That's gone with just me and the motor, My '88 Starcraft had over 900lbs of capacity and a 35hp rating.

To be quite frank, I think that the "new" boat you want at the price you seem to desire is a unicorn.

Obviously, I don't know all the manufacturers out there. There have been a number of threads on these boards about the scarcity of new entry-level aluminum boats. Some manufacturers have small aluminum boats in their catalogs, but production of those basic boats is in question. Manufacturers and dealers seem to have no profit margin in entry level boats, and so they don't produce or stock them.

I don't know where you are in Florida. I just did a quick Facebook Marketplace search centered on Orlando. I saw two boats in the V hull class; one for $600 with trailer and one for $1500. The ad for the $600 boat claimed to have title in hand.

I think you're going to have to expand your search geographically to get more possibilities. Older boats like you describe are plentiful in the Midwest.

Good luck.

With the price of aluminum rising due to tariffs, I doubt you'll see the small aluminum boats get any less expensive. I believe any outboards built off shore will suffer the same fate. If you're thinking new, find your best deal and scoop it up while the price is still bearable.

I owned the V16 and it was a very nice boat. At just over $4K for a new hull, sounds reasonably priced.

https://www.alumacraft.com/us/en/models/previous-models/2024/v-series.html

New boat prices have tripled over the past four years. A boat that you could buy new before 2020 is now over $6k or more. When new boats go up, so do used boats. No one wants to sell anything for less than they can replace it for. With the cost of all materials skyrocketing lately all boats are going up in price.

I was going to sell my dad's old Starcraft SF14 from 1994 but its in really nice shape and I can't buy anything close to it these days for anywhere near what buyers here can afford. When I look around at what's for sale here all I see is beat up or rotten old boats with no titles or near new boats that they want new prices for.

Motors on the other hand are a different story, there are dozens of good used motors everywhere around here needing little or nothing to get them going but none sell for any price lately. I took a count and between CL and FB I counted over 50 9.9-15hp Johnson/Evinrudes from '74-'92. Many are super cheap. Most of the newer models are all corroded, stuck, or in need of major repairs. There's nearly as many '98 up Mercury four strokes as well often cheaper than the 2 strokes. Honda and Suzuki are rare finds here as neither brand has a local dealer. Yamaha is king here but Mercury does well because of mail order deals.

I spent a good many years in south Florida in the later 90's to around 2010. Most of the aluminum boats I looked at there were rough, I drove up to PA to buy the two I owned while I was there. The older aluminum boats seem to last forever in freshwater areas. They tend to be better built as well from what I've seen. Two neighbors here have newer boats, one a tracker 16ft aluminum bass boat and the other a Lund SST he brought with him from MI when he came here. Neither boat impressed me much with build quality. The entire hull of the Tracker is corroding even though its never seen saltwater and the Lund has had several issues with cracks and a broken knee brace on the transom. Both are lightly used at best.
If I were to go looking I'd skip the new boats, if you ever do find one, and look for something older. Chances are you'll spend half as much and get twice the boat.

I searched for over 3 months, drove over 200 miles each way with cash in hand three years ago to buy my 16' like new Sylvan V hull. The boat is worth more today than what I paid for it...I feel your pain....pople no longer sell nice boats, they keep them !

I've looked at 9 boats near me here and only two had paperwork. Of those two only the one Starcraft was really nice, the other was a 60 year old battered mess with several patches and a bent gunwale on the left side.
The seller of the clean one wouldn't get off his $1,500 price which is likely what the boat cost new in 1993 when it was new. To its credit though it is super clean with no corrosion or damage but its been listed for that same price now for four years with no takers.
There's a few newer 16ft boats listed but they're all heavier with full interior type boats. The one was close so I stopped to see it and a four year old Tracker has huge rot holes in the transom skin and rotten corners on the deck and they're asking $9k with a 40hp Mercury. A boat like that is of no use here because we're restricted to electric motors in freshwater. For me, something like the current Smokercraft or Starcraft Alaskan 15 would be about perfect but I need a 15" transom so that means I need to find one older than 1995 or so and I'm not about to pay $6k for a new one or the crazy prices they want for a used one. I'll sit back and wait for one to come along for cheap.

Go to bass pro and look at a grizzly 14 jon it's probably as close as you can get to what you want in a new boat these days. $1895 without a trailer or motor...

flatheadsteve said:

Go to bass pro and look at a grizzly 14 jon it's probably as close as you can get to what you want in a new boat these days. $1895 without a trailer or motor...

Click to expand...

and yes the prices are going up quick. got this boat last spring and they were 200.oo cheaper with the trailer which is still the same price, 1,195.oo. you want new dont wait till next year.

SeaArk has several bench style jons in their catalog. I don’t know how often they produce them though. Based on the other stuff I’ve seen from them, I’d expect it to be a bit pricey but extremely well built.

A few nice deals showed up, but were sold in a day. You have to be fast and have cash! If you see something you want to look at, act fast.

What it cost new is irrelevant. It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Looked for over two years on CL and other boating sites. Finally, a 16' 1987 Lowe Lunker II showed up 20-minutes from me.

The hull was fine (for a near 40-year old boat), couple of soft spots in the floor that will need looked at this fall, the motor started and ran (electric start 15 hp Merc 2-stroke), and the trailer needed a complete overhaul (bunks, winch, winch stand, rollers, tires/rims, bearings, lights) but the trailer frame was 100%

$3000 and wouldn't budge. I bought it last year. I still look around and haven't seen a better deal for a 16-footer. Put a grand or so into it to fix the trailer, replace a bilge pump, add a little fish finder, and get the safety gear. The winch tower was the most expensive part, they are not cheap for the height I needed to get the bow roller above the bow eye.

Good luck to all the shoppers out there.

G3 still makes the guide series in a 14ft vhull...no idea of the price or availability. I don't recall seeing anything like that model when I was in the market a couple years ago and stopped at 2 diffrent g3 dealers.

Theboatplace.net in Rockville In. Has the lowe 14ft jons. Starting at $1849. cheapest I’ve seen. And they can package it with the hp motor you’d like and a trailer. $6100-6500. Crazy how much the new motors are.

I definitely want a V hull, I'd have to go too big and too wide to get any weight capacity in a flat bottom or mod v hull. I'm not a big fan of the Lowe boats, I was in a 16ft that a buddy owned down in Miami. It had a 50hp Evinrude on it and we were getting hit with some big waves and the front four ribs buckled in up front. It never leaked but the hull was junk after that. I had run though there hundreds of times in my younger days crashing wakes of larger boats without concern and never bent a hull.
I'm mostly looking for Starcraft, Mirrocraft, early or later Grumman, or Duranautic.
I plan to take a road trip next week up I95 and keep going till I find something I guess. I'll head up as far as NJ or PA and loop around through PA and down through WV, KY, TN, and into AL and back to FL. I ,marked off a half dozen or so that look decent up in NJ and PA. I've got a good many friends and relatives I've not seen in years along that way too so no matter what it won't be a wasted trip.
There's a Mirrocraft and a Starcraft in NJ, two Duranautics in PA, and two more Starcrafts, plus a few in NC and WV that look decent but the two up in NJ on CL look the cleanest. I want a deep sided hull, be it new or used. Since there doesn't seem to be any new boats in stock anywhere that aren't over $6K my money will go farther buying used. Hopefully I can find something nice under $2500. If I get lucky maybe I'll find a few nice older OMC two strokes too. Something that's not seen 40 years in the FL saltwater.

A buddy of mine just picked up a super clean 14ft Starcraft over in NJ back before the weather turned.
Its a 1991 model with the split bench layout I think he gave $2,800 for it with an ill fitting trailer. He didn't need the trailer but he sold the used trailer and put the boat on one he already had from his last boat. He got a good chunk of his money back selling the too-small trailer it was on in PA. The boat sat on CL there for a year with no takers but most all boats and motors just sit unsold there for years. Either everyone there only buys new boats and motors or there's more boats there than boaters.
I've got a bit of that here too, nearly every boat that sells goes to someone who drove half a day to buy it.
Best of all it already had a PA registration so the transfer was a bit easier too.
To be fair, the trailer could have been adjusted to work for the boat but he had one that was longer and a better fit for the dirt ramps he uses all the time here.
I think he got $800 for the trailer and it wasn't listed for more than a few days before it sold to someone from WV.
NJ trailers are a problem here in PA, they refuse to recognize the typical NJ HMD designation on most NJ registrations. NJ doesn't title boat trailers so everyone there just registers their trailers has home made rather than getting a new tag for every trailer. Here in PA its the opposite. The boat gets only a registration and the trailer needs an official title.

I think this is the CL pic from the ad he answered.

boatyard said:

NJ doesn't title boat trailers

Click to expand...

Huh?.... My NJ boat trailer TITLE and Registration begs to differ with you.
NJ DOES title trailers and if you do not renew the REGISTRATION (TAGS) and pay the fee EVERY year....
it gets very ugly really quick. I have heard some stories about back registration charges..... stories mind you, but I have a neighbor that will be doing that DMV dance soon and I will post the blow by blow's.
But if you are purchasing a rig in NJ...as I understand it currently.... boats over 12' are TITLED and Registered as are TRAILERS.
Under 12' boats BOS notarized only.. but the trailer still needs a TITLE to transfer owner ship. then you can take both to the NJDMV and get both Registrations , pay the sales tax on the estimated value and get your boat stickers and trailer tags... hope I got this all right... if anyone is in the purchase/selling process... double check everything..

There is a home built trailer exception to generate a title.. but it is ugly.. with inspections by the State Police as I recall and receipts from the build ECT... PITA...

Sea Antsy said:

Huh?.... My NJ boat trailer TITLE and Registration begs to differ with you.
NJ DOES title trailers and if you do not renew the REGISTRATION (TAGS) and pay the fee EVERY year....
it gets very ugly really quick. I have heard some stories about back registration charges..... stories mind you, but I have a neighbor that will be doing that DMV dance soon and I will post the blow by blow's.
But if you are purchasing a rig in NJ...as I understand it currently.... boats over 12' are TITLED and Registered as are TRAILERS.
Under 12' boats BOS notarized only.. but the trailer still needs a TITLE to transfer owner ship. then you can take both to the NJDMV and get both Registrations , pay the sales tax on the estimated value and get your boat stickers and trailer tags... hope I got this all right... if anyone is in the purchase/selling process... double check everything..

There is a home built trailer exception to generate a title.. but it is ugly.. with inspections by the State Police as I recall and receipts from the build ECT... PITA...

Click to expand...

I stand..or sit .. corrected.. SOME trailers
In New Jersey, boat trailers weighing under 2,500 lbs are exempt from titling, but must be registered. Trailers weighing 2,500 lbs or more must be titled and registered.

I have a 12' jon with a 9.9 outboard and here in sunny Alberta, I neded only to register the trailer. However if you own a boat that's over 12' then you have to register the boat and trailer.
When the rig sells, you must sign over the registration so the next guy can register it. If the Reg. papers are missing, a proper bill of sale will suffice. Not too much work involved.

fltbtm said:

and yes the prices are going up quick. got this boat last spring and they were 200.oo cheaper with the trailer which is still the same price, 1,195.oo. you want new dont wait till next year.

Click to expand...

upthecreek said:

I definitely want a V hull, I'd have to go too big and too wide to get any weight capacity in a flat bottom or mod v hull. I'm not a big fan of the Lowe boats, I was in a 16ft that a buddy owned down in Miami. It had a 50hp Evinrude on it and we were getting hit with some big waves and the front four ribs buckled in up front. It never leaked but the hull was junk after that. I had run though there hundreds of times in my younger days crashing wakes of larger boats without concern and never bent a hull.
I'm mostly looking for Starcraft, Mirrocraft, early or later Grumman, or Duranautic.
I plan to take a road trip next week up I95 and keep going till I find something I guess. I'll head up as far as NJ or PA and loop around through PA and down through WV, KY, TN, and into AL and back to FL. I ,marked off a half dozen or so that look decent up in NJ and PA. I've got a good many friends and relatives I've not seen in years along that way too so no matter what it won't be a wasted trip.
There's a Mirrocraft and a Starcraft in NJ, two Duranautics in PA, and two more Starcrafts, plus a few in NC and WV that look decent but the two up in NJ on CL look the cleanest. I want a deep sided hull, be it new or used. Since there doesn't seem to be any new boats in stock anywhere that aren't over $6K my money will go farther buying used. Hopefully I can find something nice under $2500. If I get lucky maybe I'll find a few nice older OMC two strokes too. Something that's not seen 40 years in the FL saltwater.

Click to expand...

Give some serious consideration to Sylvan aluminum boats. My neighbor has a 1998 and I have a 1992 and another friend has a 1990. The cool thing is, all the boats have no wood in their transom's...yep all aluminum with a thin plywood clamp mount on the smaller utility boats. Decks and floors only, have wood and those are easy to replace. Even top brands like Lund have wood in their transoms. Been an aluminum boat owner for over 60 years, smoker craft, starcraft, mirrocraft, alumacraft, northwood, and now my second Sylvan. I can honestly say that the two I have had the least amount of issues with ( leaks) has been the Microcraft and the Sylvans, neither have ever shown a leak other than my stupidity of forgetting a plug. Northwood was the worse, and the Star crafts had a few issues, nothing serious. Understand how to drive an aluminum boat thru big waves, many folks do not understand this and this is how the hulls are damaged. Good luck on your shopping !

Sylvan makes great boats but Sylvan. Smokercraft and Starcraft are the same boat and I've not seen a new Sylvan branded utility boat for over 10 years now. It seems that Sylvan has become the pontoon boat wing of the three lately.
The Alaskan 15 is what I call the ideal fishing boat here, its wide, stable, and fast and can take up to a 35hp motor. Its just finding one that's the problem because no local dealer near me here has either brand and if they don't sell new one's, there's not usually many used one's for sale either. My one neighbor has a first year model for that Alaskan hull, before they tossed the middle seat altogther and he runs a 1985 35ho Johnson on it and it flies. Its got every bit as much room inside as my 16ft because it lacks the forward bow plate and has no splash tray taking up room. With that 35hp on the back I've sworn that thing nearly took flight a few times with two BIG guys in it. He's used it as his crabbing boat in the back bays now for nearly 30 years I suppose. Its got decals on the side like the SF above. (For a few years what is now known as the Alaskan was sold as the SF14L but although they call it a 14ft it measures around 14ft 8" or so long down the center. I think calling it 14ft was an issue in some states and they changed it to its own model and called it a 15ft after that. I'd jump on the chance to own one if one came up for sale in my price bracket, which these days isn't much but I'd gladly dig up a few hundred bucks for one. The problem is most sell for over $2k here. Add a grand with a trailer, and at least another grand for a decent 10hp two stroke, Maybe more if its a Johnson or Evinrude. For fishing I still like the older 9.5hp motors they're low and out of the way when fishing and super light to swap out for the larger motor or to take along as a spare. (I run an '85 35hp on my 16ft boat and keep a little 4hp under the bow deck just in case. It saved me a lower unit one day when U wrapped a ton of line around my prop eating the lower unit seal to bits. The 4hp got me the rest of the way home while the 35 stayed out of the water. It took an extra 40 minutes bit that little 4hp did the job and it did it on one tiny tank of fuel. Probably the best $25 I ever spent.

In NJ only commercial trailers and trailers weighing over 2500 lbs EMPTY get a title. They won't even issue a title otherwise. I've tried.
If your smart, if you buy a trailer out of state and its got a title, KEEP the title and register it as homemade. All yoi need is a basic description of how and what its made out of and an official weight slip from any certified scale.
Then when you need to sell that trailer you keep your tag and registration and hand over the title so it don't restrict you to only selling it to someone in NJ because PA won't accept a NJ registration as proof of ownership if its not current. If you have a title from out of state, or the Certificate of Origin from the Manufacturer you forfeit that in lieu of a NJ registration card.

The big catch now is that if you didn't register during the pandemic they no longer do registrations in person and a missed year means you must register in person. If you scream and holler enough they can wave the missed years but may hand you a sheet to sign swearing that the trailer was in your possession and not in use over that missed period. Its sort of up to the person your dealing with that day. Lets just say some are better than others.

The whole appointment only thing is BS because you still end up waiting in line and now the line is longer because they over schedule by more than quadruple.

NJ requires any boat with a motor be registered but only boats over 12ft get titles.
PA don't title any boat before a certain year or boats with a bank lien on them.
I seem to recall it being boats over 14ft and newer than 1997.
I lived in PA for 8 years, on a lake in the 00's and don't remember seeing any newer boats there, most of the boats on the lake were really old. I bought my 82 MIrrocraft there and it came with a 1957 35hp on it that ran like new. I ran it for years but found a newer motor at an estate sale and made the swap 12 years ago and sold that 57 35hp for double what I paid for the newer motor. The '57 35hp went home to PA where its still in use on a glass '57 Speedqueen.