purchasing fresh water vs salt water

[valhalla360]

While individual maintenance can easily overwhelm the effect...yes, fresh water boats live a much easier life.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

While individual maintenance can easily overwhelm the effect...yes, fresh water boats live a much easier life.

Fiberglass, yes; wood, no. Salt water helps prevent dry rot in wood. Saltwater pickles the wood and acts as a preservative.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by tuffr2

I am in Florida now looking for a boat. The only boats that are not beat up and crappy looking are new boats.

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Keep looking, while what you say is usually true, I even saw a few for or five yr old boats that looked like crap, amazing how fast a neglected boat will go down hill.
I found that the type of boat that was someones second or third boat seemed to be of a different class than average.
Many I believe if not most boats in Fl are bought by the Retired couple from up North that always wanted a boat, so they buy one, and it sits, and sits, until one day they finally need or want the money and decide to sell the thing.
They of course think it ought to be worth what they paid for it so the market it at that or a little higher. Then it sits, and sits, further deteriorating and costing money and looks like crap.

This is where a buyers broker came in for me, she weeded out most of the crap. Took almost a year and God knows how many thousands of miles driven looking, but we finally did find our boat. There are jewels out there, just have to weed out the costume jewelry first. Plus some boats aren't made to last to be honest, and they show wear quickly.

First boat I bought came out of the Great Lakes, gorgeous boat, only a few years old, like maybe 5? Beautifully kept up, lot of upgrades, well done.
Busted survey, largely due to moisture in the deck, looked like some water had gotten in and the freeze / thaw cycle had widened the damage, deck had spider web cracks when you looked hard, we assumed this was from the freezing.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Fiberglass, yes; wood, no. Salt water helps prevent dry rot in wood. Saltwater pickles the wood and acts as a preservative.

Technically true but since they make up an ever so tiny portion of the market and the OP never suggested wood, I was ignoring wood hull boats.