I've discovered that boats are like cars. The first one you buy is usually the best.
Our first boat was a cheap little open bow bayliner with a 4cyl Volvo motor and a V/P outdrive. It did everything just fine, as long as you don't mind going SSSLLLLOOOOOWWWWWWW...
It had a closed cooling system, so no flushing the engine required, the outdrive was stupid simple and bulletproof and the rest of the boat was junk so you didn't care about the upholstry. It was great, you could cruise all day on 10 gallons of gas. It was hard to find parts for, but it rarely broke anything.
Contrast to the new boat.
I was sick of going slow, so I bought one with a blown up motor. Then, of course I couldn't just put in a stock replacement. That means I had to buy lots of parts to swap in something I already owned. Then I find out that the Cobra outdrives have troubles with shifting, on comes another fix and on and on and on.....
Now it's time to test n tune the new combo. I've gone up 4 stages in jetting from what I though would be good and it's still too lean. Guess I'm making more power than I thought...
At least I'm down to the fun part, where you drive it around and test it to see how fast it will go. So far it's fast enough to be spooky, but not scary. That might be good for awhile..
