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!

I loved my lake house the minute I laid eyes on it! After viewing the little mobile home I looked at for $80,000.00, this was a dream house. The price was a hefty $225,000.00 and it was worth it. 3 bedrooms, a large kitchen, an open dining room, cozy living room, even a little cove for the woodstove and a good size foyer. 1250 square feet in all, 2 outdoor sheds, crawl space under the house, new septic, new well and 110 feet of lake front.

As I stood on the long dock looking up at the impressive ledge bank that climbed straight up 20 feet from the water to the house I said to my realtor, “I want to buythis house, how much do you think I should offer?” We both thought that $200 K would be a good start. I was so excited that after hearing even more good things about the house (the furniture and house wares come with the house, and there’s outdoor lighting on the stairs, etc), I made the mistake (?) of saying that I was very interested in buying the house. About then my agent lead me swiftly by the arm out of the house, “Uh, we’ll talk about that later,” he said.”

I was a bit perturbed to find out that the realtor had not brought the paper work with him and while I waited about an hour for him to return my friend Pete took me for a spin in his boat out to see the house from the water. Well, just then I saw a woman standing on the dock looking up at the house and I gulped, “Pete,” I said, “That woman is going to buy my house.” It was then that I decided to make the owners a full offer! Sure enough, she put a bid of $220,000.00. I guess it was lucky for me that the realtor didn’t come with the paper work on this particular day, onlyhat was about where my luck ended for a while!

It seemed I waited an eternity to hear from the realtor. That’s because he was waiting on the primary realtor, Wenda Byrd of Century 21, to get back to him as to whether the owners had accepted my offer. Come to find out, Wenda had never given the owners the benefit of knowing that I was interested in their house because she had other notions as to just who would buy that house, especially since she stood to receive full commission for the sale by getting her client in that house. Finally, my realtor timidly asked my friend Peter to drop by the house to see what the owners knew, that’s when we discovered that the owner’s didn’t even know that there was another offer, although they do remember inquiring about “the lady from New York” who seemed so interested. Apparently, Wenda Byrd decided to keep that information to herself and I was lucky again when my friend Pete informed the owners of the truth, and since my offer was $5,000 more than Wenda’s client the owners accepted my offer, naturally.

The next issue was with the mortgage company (Magnum from LendingTree.com) after 4 weeks of grueling back and forth work, they dropped me 4 days before the scheduled closing. They simple stated, “We’re not doing this.” Apparently, they had never sold a 3 season, lake front property and were pressuring me to have a furnace installed (at my expense) to make the house into a cheap, makeshift 4-season home; Magnum Mortgage also wanted me to go with one of those prime rate mortgages but I was insisting on a traditional fixed rate loan. What made me mad was that I had asked them right up front if they had had experience selling 3 season, lake front property, to which they replied, “Sure we do,” NOT!

Well, I finally got a local mortgage company when my realator (Gilbert of Poultney) exclaimed “We get mortages on houses that are falling into the lake; I’ll bet they’ve already sold your mortgage.” So, I prayed that the owners agreed to wait another month for a new mortgage, this company (National City Mortgage) was superb and very creative.

I am a person that enjoys projects. I have a good feeling when I complete a project. It’s an opportunity to know that I can create, change and positively impact my environment. Of the many projects that I like, building and staining decks is of great fun to me. This might be because I have a worldview that thinks everything is fun on the lake, or it might be that I am outside in the nice weather. The other part is that I like creating and enhancing items around my lake front.

Staining my deck allows me to create a beautiful finish that will protect and enhance the aesthetics of the deck for years to come. Here is some reason to stain your deck:

• Protects from mold and mildew (that green stuff)

• Maintains the natural wood look (Using clear stain)

• Reduces splinters

• Without staining the wood goes grey and looks old (driftwood)

• Adds years on to the life of the deck

• Aesthetically, enhances the beauty of the deck.

• Over long periods of time, will help the deck maintain strength.

• Helps to protect deck hardware (Screws, lag bolts)

I have stained about five decks in my life. I do not claim to be an expert, but I am willing to pass on my insight.

The first deck that I stained I did so with a solid color. I was looking for a deck stain that would last at least five years without re-staining. I used a brand called Sikkens, I followed the directions to a tee. I individually sanded each board. I made sure that the lumber was dry. I purchased the lumber from an indoor lumber yard, paying a bit more to make sure it was dry.

I stained each board before assembling the deck. Of course there is some waste in this as you have to cut some boards. This was a 10 x 12 foot deck with an out cove for my BBQ grill. I also had a built in bench. Because of the sanding and painting prior to assembly, it took three times as long to build this deck. I know of no contractors that would sand and paint each board prior to assembly. This was fun, but tremendous work. I was very pleased with the outcome of the deck. Three years later it still looked great! By the fourth year, the paint had some minor peeling. This would leave spots of bare wood against the solid stain color. By the fifth and sixth year, more peeling had occurred. I was still happy with the deck and stain, but now I was going to have sand and re-stain. Without doing this, the stain was in contrast to the bare wood.

My next job was to stain a wood fence. For this I decided to use a water based wood protector. Thompsons I believe. This went on easy, cleaned up easy, but did not last more the 2 years. I learned that you would have to apply this almost every year to keep the wood looking nice.

I decided that I wanted a clear oil based stain that would not show such a contrast when it wore off, such as described above with the solid color stain. I decided water based products were not effective enough for me. For staining my lake front deck I decided on a product sold at Lowes called Olympic clear stain with a 2 year guarantee. I was not happy to think that I would have to re-stain every 2 years, but the only way to increase that time was by getting a more pigmented stain, this reduced the visibility of the wood underneath. Cedar tone might go three years, redwood four years, etc. But with each step up, the closer you were to a solid color. I wanted to see the natural wood.

The nice thing about using a clear stain is that you can’t really mess up. Because it’s clear, if you go to light or heavy in application, it looks close to the same. If you were to miss, you would barely notice it. I have had all my teenager kids help me. You can’t really go wrong in application (unless it rains within 24 hours of application). This stain tends to make the wood designs (knots or grain) stand out more, so that you get the wood look. This stain tends to make it shine, a bit of a yellow tint and provides for a smooth feel. I have used this stain for about 8 years now, and I am able to go three years before it is noticeable that it needs to be restrained. My dock has gone five years since last using this product, and you can clearly see that it is starting to “grey out”. This Olympic 2 year guaranteed clear stain is in a blue gallon can at Lowes.

partially stained