If you read my previous post, you would know the pre-requisites that go into thinking about what kind of boat fit your needs, wants and the type of lake you plan to put it on.

Since I replaced my 1952 fishing shack with a new building in May 2008, I had to sell my boat to help qualify for the mortgage and use the money for some constructions wants. But as I sold it, I knew that in a few years I would be purchasing a boat again. My 2005 Smokercraft Melentia 172 netted me $10,000 in 2008. A nominal loss of about $3500. I spent some time recently looking at boats. It’s hard for me to get the smoker craft fishing boats out of my system.

2005 172 Melentia with 90 hp

My wife and I looked at a Chris Craft. The entry level 20 foot boat starts at $43,000! I would equate this to a corvette with the luxury of a Cadillac. A beautiful boat, but, way out of my price range. Chris Craft are known for style and power. Not fishing. Many millionaires own this type of boat!

The next type of boat we looked at was a Regal, 20 foot power boat. This boat is built for water sports and fun on the lake. My wife really liked this boat! It had cup holders, cooler storage and all the bells and whistles of a play toy. Price reduced to $33,000. Certainly a very beautiful boat, with a 225 hp mercruiser. The boat weighed in at 3300 lbs. No live wells or room for you fishing pools. Plenty of wake board storage. Great swim platform and stereo. Four speakers pointed backwards to the water skier. 200 watt sound system!

2009 20 foot Regal

Finally, we looked at Four Winns 19 foot “runabout”. Priced at about $23,000. It has a 185 hp mercrusier inboard/outboard. Nice boat! This boat was made of fiberglass, weighing in at about 2800 pounds. Had all the standard bells and whistles. Stereo, storage for water skiing equipment, plenty of cup holders and a sun deck for sun bathers. Swim ladder for easy swim access. Made of fiberglass so nice and heavy Cadillac type of ride. No live well, rod storage, or fish finder.

These were all new boats. I start by looking at new, but ultimately, I try and purchase either a 2-3 year old model or a leftover. My first boat, a Smokercraft stinger 161 was 3 years used. The motor was new. My second boat, melentia 172, was a left over.

My recent dilemma has been to choose to buy either aluminum or fiberglass. This is of course a personal choice. I am bias to aluminum. Many people prefer fiberglass as it is heavier, tends to push through the water, providing a less “bouncy” ride. Below is a link to read about the aluminum vs. fiberglass debate. http://ezinearticles.com/?Buying-a-New-Boat?-Fiberglass-Vs

-Aluminum—A-Comprehensive-Guide&id=1887117

I prefer aluminum as I find it to be more efficient. It weighs half of the weight of fiberglass. Therefore it is more energy efficient, Easier to get on a plane, and uses less power to get out of the hole and on a plane. Also, my truck has an easier time pulling a 1700 pound 19 foot boat as compared to 2800 pound 19 foot fiberglass. If you have an accident, you can re-weld, re-paint, or simply push out a “ding”. Fiberglass requires a professional repair.  But, fiberglass boats are usually better for water skiing. Also, I prefer outboards to inboard/outboards. I find that outboards take up less space, especially if the boat is less than 20 feet. I have looked at 19 foot boats and third of the boat is the engine cover. Outboards also allow me to easily change engines, and I can swap a motor on the boat if the regular motor needs repair. In other words, I don’t have to give up on the use of the boat.

So, while I have attempted to expand my horizons, I cling to the practicability of a fishing boat. I want the live well so that I can bring the fish home and show off. I want the rod storage. I want to be able to walk on the deck and fish close to the water. I also want to pull the kids around in a tube, and water ski. But, I have found that kids eventually “wear” out some of those activities. But exploring and fishing on many types of lakes never seems to bore me.

So, I have done my research and decided to step up from a Melentia 17 foot to a Melentia 19 foot. Here is why:

· The 19 foot version is approved for 8 people instead of 5 (17 foot version).

· It weighs only about 300 pounds more but can have up to a 175 hp (the 17 foot version was rated to 125 hp)

· The rear bench now has seats, so you can comfortably seat 6. 2 more can sit on the front deck.

· The 19 foot version can handle lake Champlain volatility (larger waves)

· The 19 foot version has plenty of room; you can be comfortable on a day trip.

· More space for fishing people and gear.

· It’s a bit faster (tops out at about 48 mph vs. 40)

o This is helpful on large lakes

· Still family orientated.

I have purchased all of my previous boats from Mondaknock Boat Store in Rindge NH. Scott is one of the owners and he works a fair deal and gives good service. He is sensitive to needs and wants. I will say, I would like a 175 hp on that. He’ll say “Do you really need that? I have heard that a 150 hp is more than enough”. Good advice and a sincere sense of what you need.

I have spoke to Scott this time around and he has a 2009 Melentia 192 left over. Price…$25,000. This is a little bit more then I wanted to spend. So, I started searching the Internet. After going through three pages of Google, I found a 2007 192 Melentia for $18,995. I really like the color of this boat vs. the 2009 model. It seemed to be loaded with options. Where was this boat? Wisconsin. YEP! Nearly 2000 miles away. Smokercarft boats are not common boats found for sale. For $1750, he will haul it to NY for me.

2007 Melentia 192

So, we’ll see. I will post an update after I get more information and make a decision.

This is a hard subject to write about as there are so many variables. Because of this, I am going to assume some things. You can modify them to fit your needs.

1. Lake size: Less than 1200 acres (smaller then Lake George, but big enough to need several hours to explore).

a. Usually you will not sleep in your boat on this size lake.

b. Usually you are doing activities that are 2-4 hours at a time

c. I will assume that you are doing some fishing and water sports.

d. I will assume that it is of general use for family.

e. That you need enough power to tube and water-ski

f. But enough economy so that an average middle class person can afford the gas and purchase.

g. Price range $5,000 (used) to $30,000 new

h. 16 to 20 foot in length

I. All require a trailer to tow them, possibly a truck.

2. Question to ask and research:

a. How much horse power?

b. What size boat?

c. Inboard or outboard?

d. Two or four stroke?

e. What brands?

What boat you pick depends on your needs and wants, as well as your wallet. I will describe how I made my purchase, answer the questions above with the assumptions in place.

My lake is 500 acres. It is in the top 10% of largest lakes in Vermont. There are about six or so lakes that are two to three times the size of my lake. Most people on my lake have a 17 foot “runabout” with a 70hp motor. In a general sense, this boat will tow a tube, pull young water skiers, and you can fish from.

My first boat was a 16 foot smoker craft stinger 161 (16 foot) with a 50 hp 2 stroke outboard motor. This boat was on the smaller size, but good for a 500 acre lake. You could not water ski, but you could pull a tube and fish. The boat would seat 5 people. This boat would top out at about 30 mph. It was hard to “plane” it if you had 5 people in it. It was good on gas. You could afford to buy and drive this boat. No complaints. This boat is probably a bit small for lakes bigger than 900 acres. The bigger the lake, the bigger the waves. Our kids were little, so we could fit all six of my family. It was a nice to fish off. You need a swim platform if you plan to swim away from your lakefront area. Cost $9000. This boat was purchased new as a left over in 2003.

My second boat was a bit bigger. I thought I wanted to fish more, and I wanted to water-ski. My kids were all teenagers. I purchased a 17 foot Smokercraft Mellentia Leftover, with a 90 hp. 2 stroke outboard. It was rated for 5 people. This boat was not as good on gas. When gas was around $4 a gallon, I was having a hard time filling the tank….25 gallons was $100. The 16 footer will fill for $50 and the gas lasted longer! This boat had a 4 speaker stereo system, and that I really enjoyed! It also had a swim platform. This was also fun as it was nice to swim in various parts of the lake, I could water-ski with this boat. It top out at 42 mph. It was a great fishing boat. While you could Water-ski it was not the greatest at this. If you are really into waters-skiing, I think that an inboard and/or more horsepower are needed. purchase in 2007 for $14,000

They make boats that specialize in pulling water-skiers. So if that is your main focus, focus on those boats.

So here is my recommendation based on the above assumptions:

ü 16 to 19 foot in length.

ü 50 hp to 150hp. (upper end for water-skiing)

ü Swim Platform

ü Outboard (allows you to change engine size if you wish)

ü Full windshield and Biminis top in case of rain

ü Stereo system

ü Live well for fishing

Brand? That’s a preference and financial decision. I can only say that I have seen and ridden in many high quality boats in this range of assumptions.

Search the different types of boats available. There are many websites that offer boats for sale. They also offer different categories of boats, so that you can pinpoint exactly which type will suit your needs. For instance, www.boatnationusa.com is one such site. In the boat search category, you can search for all types of boats for sale. Here you will find fishing boats, family cruisers, day boats, sailboats, and yachts. Remember the old rule about boats: “It’s a hole in the water into which you pour money.” Even a small boat will require maintenance, insurance, replacement parts, winterizing, etc. A small runabout boat can cost over $40 per hour just to run about, with gas prices high and likely to stay that way! If you’re not planning on using your boat for sports like skiing, and speed is not an issue, consider looking at boats with small motors. They go slowly, but inexpensively: $3.00 per hour of use.

Because I replaced my lake front cabin with a new house, I had to sell my 90hp boat. I now use what I started with. a 12 foot rowboat with a 9.9hp on it. This is a great starter boat. Can’t tube or water-ski, but you can get out the lake and fish. Less then a $1000 as my motor was used! Great gas mileage. The kids need to learn how to oar a boat before they drive. the basics are a kayak, canoe, and row boat. The motor boat comes later!

Purchasing a new Outdoor BBQ Grill for your Lakefront
It was the start of a new season at my lake front home in Vermont. I had just recently replaced my seasonal 700 square foot cabin with a modern day 3 bedroom 1000 square foot vacation home (1500 square feet if you add the walk out basement). See the section on replacing your seasonal cabin with a modern vacation home.

My wife and I have four teen age kids and it had worked out so that we had this weekend to ourselves. Yep, a sunny spring weekend at the vacation lakefront away from the worries of the world including kids! The increases your expectations of a great weekend!

It was 6pm and I had decided to cook steaks on the BBQ grill. I proceeded to light the grill using matches (How many of you know why you have to light your gas grill with matches?). I turned both burners on and dropped the match in. Sure enough, after a minute POOF! One burner caught and then a minute later the fire spread to the other burner….poof. Now, this procedure should encourage you to start you outdoor grill with a buzz cut. I liked this grill, or, perhaps I just liked grilling. Or, it just could be that there are not much better things in life then having a beer while you are grilling and watching the action on the lake from you deck!

I purchased the grill six years ago from Wall Mart in August. I remember the call to my wife “honey, WE really need a new grill and Wal-Mart has this Great Outdoors grill for $99 dollars on sale”. What happened to our last grill? Well, it caught on fire as the burner rusted out and caused more of torch in the middle of the grill. That grill did cook your food very quickly though! My wife commented that grill was only 3 years old (I paid $75 for that one. It had 1 burner!). Her answer was ok, as she rationalized the $99 dollars due to the fact that we did use the grill every time we were at the Lake front which was about 16– 20 weekends a year.
Back to the present. After my 5 year old “Great Outdoors” grill was warmed up, I put the steaks on closed the hood and walked away to water my flowers. Within a few minutes I saw a huge billow of smoke come from the grill. As I ran to the grill I could see that the plastic shroud that holds up the cast iron grate had caught on fire. It was burning very slowly and plastic was melting over top of the propane tank (stored underneath). Now at this point, I could envision my new deck going up in flames. I rushed for the hose. Turned it on and nothing! A kink….a #@#$* kink in the hose was preventing me from putting out the BBQ fire! Finally after 2 kinks I was able to spray the fire out (motivation to get a kink less hose?). What a mess. The worst part was that now I have to cook the stakes inside!! It’s like when you run out of gas!
After looking the grill over and trying it to see if I could cook using a single burner, my wife says “Honey, I wouldn’t try and use it now, it might start on fire again”. Now why would it do that? Then she says “I guess we’ll have to just purchase another grill”. DID I HEAR THAT! YES! How often do you get to look at your past years of experiences with grilling and then put them all into one purchase! I put on my Chef’s hat! YES…what a silver lining…a new grill!!
Ok…this was it! I was out to find the most serious grill that I could afford (or not afford). I was going to spend $500 dollars on this grill and get a good one!! Time to hit the internet and research. Google: Gas grills reviews. This led me to about.com top ten grills . Let’s see: Char broil, Nexgrill, Napoleon, Sunbeam, Kenmore, Weber, Broil King, Broilmaster, Vidalia, and about 10 other names I have never heard of. Wait a minute, an outdoor kitchen! YES! OOOOOHH that would be nice! OOH $5-10,000. Not this year!
A “Great Outdoors” grill was not in the listing of top ten grills!! But I liked that grill! After researching the company, I found out that it went out of business in 2004! Parts were not available. Hmmm?
I started to think about all the grills that I owned. I bet that I have purchased perhaps 10 grills in my lifetime. Then I remembered that I have a 2 burner grill at my house (back in the real world) that I purchased in 1999 or 2000. Wow, that’s a long time ago! That grill is going on 10 years old. Two years ago I purchased replacement parts, the grates and a burner. Initially I didn’t think about this grill as I do not cook on it much (I am always at the lake house on weekends). I think that it was called a Weber Spirit 500. It was ok. It always cooked well. 90% of the time the ignition switch worked unless it rained (I did not have a cover for it). It is a small 2 burner grill in basic black. No, let me find something else…there is nothing special about that Weber grill. Or, perhaps, it was because that grill was at home, where the everyday stress abounds, work calls, teenage kids and their problems, and free time is nonexistent. Well alright, I’ll consider a Weber in my grill search.
After reading up on all the various grills, two grills emerged to me as the best choice for my Lakefront. They were Weber (Weber website) and Napoleon (Napoleon website ). The entry level Napoleon grill was the Prestige for about $800 (what happened to $500?). Weber had several grills at all price ranges. The Match to the Napoleon Prestige was the Weber Genesis. First I’ll discuss the Napoleon.

I was attracted to the Napoleon Prestige for several reasons. Napoleon offered a Lifetime Limited Warranty that seems to cover everything. I could imagine problems with this grill in 5 years and having it covered under the warranty. I liked the heavy duty steel used in construction, the simplicity of design, and that the burner control knobs were in the front. That was important as I needed space to put my food while I was opening the grill cover. In general it seemed like this grill was constructed well. I liked the way the grill cover opened and the wave grill bars. I also liked the great website. I was able to view videos about assembly, maintenance, and grilling. I was also able to down load the instruction manual. I thought if the grill is as designed as well as the website, then I found my grill. One difference between Napoleon and Weber is that this was Napoleon’s entry level grill! Prices go up from here!

The next step was to go and look at a Napoleon Grill in person. Eagerly I clicked on the “Where to buy” tab. Typed in my zip code, and 2 locations came up. One dealer, Matchless Stove and Chimney, was relatively close about 10 miles away. The other was nearly an hour south. I followed a link to the Matchless stove and chimney site. Not one mention on their web site about selling Napoleon gas grills or any BBQ grills. I called and they said that they did not sell BBQ grills. Next I called BAC sales. Yes, they are a wholesaler but they do have a retail store. It was open 9am-5pm Mon – Friday and part of the day on Saturday (For which I am at the lake that day!). I expanded the zip code search. Next there was one near Lake George. But, when would I get there? I asked my wife to see if she could drive to BAC and look at one. But due to her work hours, she would arrive as the place closed. I think that you get the idea. Access is important. I was hoping to purchase a new grill inside of 1 week so that I could use in the upcoming weekend. Otherwise I would have to cook inside, yikes!

My first stop to look at grills was Home Depot. They had numerous makes, models and sizes to choose from. They had several Weber grills. I noticed that all their Weber Grills were models “E” without a side burner. Next I went to Wal-Mart. The selection was far smaller. They had the kid of grills that you buy and throw out in 3 years. I also went to Lowes. They seem to sell the same kind of grills as Home Depot.

My last stop was an outdoor store called Best Fire (Best Fire). They sold Weber grills. The sales person, Kyle, was very knowledgeable and helped me understand the difference between his Weber Grills and the ones at Home Depot, True Value, or Lowes. He called those companies “box stores”. Kyle explained that he sold Weber models that were “EP”, P meaning premium grill. At first seemed like a sales pitch. He explained and I corroborated on my own research that the difference between “E” and “EP” is the size and type of metal in the cooking grates and flavor bars that are just above the burners. In the “E” model, the cooking grates and flavorizers are cast iron. In the “EP”, they are both stainless steel. Stainless steel will last years longer than cast iron. There were a few other minor differences related to accessories (stainless steel handles, cook book, and more hooks for grill utensils). The price was also $50 more.
After years of thinking how nice it would be to have a side burner for corn on the cob, or beans, I decided that any grill I purchase needed to have one. Lowes and Home Depot only sold model “E-210” or “E-310”. This meant no side burner. Best fire had a model “EP-320” which included the side burner. True Value also had a model “E-320”.
Another reason that I decided on the Summit series Weber grill model “EP-320” is that I wanted 4 burners. Throughout my grilling career, I had always had 2 burners. That is great when you are cooking for 1-3 people, perhaps 4. But if you cook for 4 or more, or have guest over, you have cook in rotating shifts. You know, start the chicken first, then move it the side, start the burgers, then the dogs, etc. by the time you have finished, the first rotation is cold. The other problem is that 2 burner grills, especially the cheaper one, heat in the middle of the grill area. This causes you to have to shift the food around on the grill or the outside food might be really rare. With a 4 burner grill, I can choose to cook on 2 burners for just my wife and I, or, if I have guests over, I can cook on all 4.

In conclusion I looked at many makes and models of grills. I researched reviews on the internet. From this process I narrowed my choice down to 2 manufacturers. I chose between those manufacturers based on access, support and part availability. My choice was to purchase a Weber. The model that I choose was based on my previous grilling experiences. I wanted 4 burners and a side burner. I wanted my knobs on the front so that I had work space (that is why I move up to Summit series from the Genesis series). I wanted the “EP” models as I liked the stainless steel cooking grills. Best Fire discounted the grill $200 less than other places. Kyle was an honest sales guy.