lessons learned from buying a 10 year old boat

[bpsuls]

Oh yes, my neighbor and I refer to costs on our boats as "boat units". 1 boat unit = $1000. Typical conversation: Yeah I had to replace [insert random expensive part] last weekend. How much did that cost you? Actually it was pretty cheap around 0.7 boat units. Oh that's not bad". I take good care of it, it takes good care of me, but boat ownership is an expensive endeavor any which way you cut it. Was it worth it worth it? Absolutely and then some. All of the priceless hours I spent on it with my boys, my family and friends are some of the best memories I have. I've used it for just about any task you could ask from a boat from fishing, hunting, exploring, sleeping on it, towing the kids on boards and tubes, as a ferry to remote cabins, front row seats to fireworks or aviation shows, its just straight up awesome. Put almost 1000hrs in the last 10 years of ownership on the main alone, probably another 1000 on the kicker and probably 3-4 times that in just bobbing around on it. My experience has been the more I use it the less stuff breaks/seizes on it. And yeah I went EOH on my trailer brakes years ago. Best trailer decision I ever made. I will NEVER have regular surge brakes ever again, dont care if I downsize to a 2000# boat I'll be the only single axle trailer with a Hydrastar on it haha. It almost never fails, unlike my previous trailer that chewed through drum brakes like it was being paid per brake assembly destroyed. Couldn't get them to last more than a year no matter how many gallons of salt away I soaked them in.