How You'll Use It
Bowriders are among the easiest boats to maintain, but the maintenance you skip is exactly the maintenance that becomes expensive.
A practical maintenance schedule for bowrider boats: engine servicing, drive care, upholstery, trailer maintenance and annual costs.
The bowriders that come up most often when readers ask us where to start.
The world's best-selling bowrider size, in its most accessible form: light, simple and easy to tow.
US$38,000 - US$52,000 new
The refined mainstream benchmark: quiet, dry, and beautifully finished for the money.
US$72,000 - US$95,000 new
The previous-generation classic. Millions of families learned to boat in one of these.
US$8,000 - US$22,000 used
Flush the engine if you have been in salt water, hose the hull, deck and trailer, and open every locker to dry. Wipe upholstery down and never leave it wet under a closed cover, which is how mould starts.
Outboards: engine oil and filter, gear oil, spark plugs, water pump impeller every two to three years, anodes checked. Stern drives: engine oil, drive oil, bellows inspection, gimbal bearing grease, anodes, and impeller.
Budget roughly 1-3 percent of the boat's value per year for routine servicing on a well-kept boat.
In salt water the trailer usually fails before the boat. Grease bearings annually, check brake lines and wiring, inspect the winch strap, and replace rusted rollers before they mark the hull.
In order of frequency: dead batteries, seized or corroded trailer components, cracked upholstery from UV, water in the bilge from a failed drain plug or bellows, and fuel problems from stale petrol. Almost all of it is prevented by covering the boat and using it regularly.
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