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In article ,
(Gould 0738) wrote:

Seeing how the new boater might be considering the legitimate posts, I'd
like to address this post.

Boat dealers just love the advice:

"Start with a 16-footer, and then move up two feet per year as you gain
experience."

Horsefeathers.

Unless you are *completely* clueless about what you want to do with the boat,
where you want to use it, how many people will ordinarily be aboard, etc,
that's very bad and expensive advice.

Okay, I don't argue with being able to start with a larger boat, nor do I
think an individual can only move up two feet per year. But I don't
necessarily think that's a bad general statement for somone you don't know
anything about.

Also, most people who have never owned a boat, ARE completely clueless.
Granted they may have ideas of the "whats and wheres" of their boating
desires, but my guess is most are unaware of the practicality or logistics
of fulfilling those desires. That's not just handling experience, but the
costs of insurance, fuel, dockage, and maintenance as well. How can you
expect someone who hasn't owned a boat to be completely aware of this?

How is blindly telling a would be boater to get a larger boat, only for
them to find out the hard way they are too intimidated by its size to
operate it, or cannot afford the necessities the boat need to be utilized,
less of a disservice than putting them in too small of a boat?

Get a boat that suits your needs and, at the very beginning, learn to operate
it properly. That may even involve hiring somebody to teach you, one on one.
Yes, the CG Aux and the Power Squadron courses are fine......but they won't
teach you how to operate your boat. In some of those organizations, a person
can become
a high level instructor with no requirement that ever, even once in a
lifetime,
did they set foot on an actual boat. Theory is good, and the safety stuff
doesn't require boating experience to pass along in a basic form.
Don't skip the course work, but don't even thinik it will begin to prepare you
to handle a larger boat than you start off with.

Providing you truly know what your needs are, and those needs are
reasonable (this is not always the case), I cannot disagree here. I also
agree there is a differnece between boating theory and boating practice.
I think that is the very reason why people will tell first time boaters to
get into a smaller boat. The theories are the same regardless of size,
the practice is usually easier on the smaller vessel.

You're more likely to have a "bad experience" that turns you off from boating
by going out in an undersized boat than in
getting a boat that is actually suitable for your needs to begin with (and
taking the time to learn to run it before you just head out to sea).

Bad experiences happen not just at sea, but in the harbors too. Yes a
person can be turned off from boating in an undersized boat in rough
conditions, but I've heard of just as many , if not more, people who were
turned off because they were scared ****tless trying to dock their new big
boat when conditions turned. Docking the smaller boat would have
presented less of a problem under the same circumstances.

Running a 16-foot boat for a year or so does a wonderful job of training
you....to run a 16-foot boat.

This is as you would say, "Horsefeathers". IMHO, running a 16 foot boat
allows to apply boating theory, and gain boating experience at a faster
rate, with reduced risk, and reduced ancillary costs than with say
stepping into a 28 foot cruiser.

There is always a learning curve when you step up in size. Might as well
run up
that curve for a boat that actually suits your needs.

In theory trying to get the boat that willbest suit your needs is always
sound advice. In practice, if a new boater wants to sleep his family
aboard and accomodate larger groups of people, as the original poster
stated, then they might have to compromise their "needs" with the
practicality of owning such a boat with limited experience and/or budget.

Your points aren't necessarily bad, but they are one sided. Remember, on
any given nice weekend the marinas are full of big shiny new boats,
chained to the dock because their skipper had, or has, too few resources
(crew, money) and/or too steep of a learning curve to overcome.

Bob Dimond

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