How to choose a sports boat

23 June 2010 - How to choose a sports boat David Lush and Hugh Styles for Towergate Mardon.

The choices can seem bewildering if you want a small sports boat, so it’s vital to consider the right factors. In the first of a new series, Hugh Styles and his ‘Time on the Water’ business partner, David Lush offers some guidance on how to choose a sports boat.

One of the most popular misconceptions in the world of boating is that a great divide exists between the sailing and sports boat fraternities: that these are two distinct breeds of people who never fail to antagonise each other and have absolutely nothing in common.

The simple truth is that many people who use and enjoy boats use and enjoy a wide variety of boats. Most sailing events are strongly supported by RIBs, and many sports boat users happily mess about in dinghies and sailing boats as well.

As a sailor who has raced and helped run sailing events for several decades, I also own and use a sports boat. I probably spend longer in RIBs, launches and my Boston Whaler than sailing, and am always being asked to help friends when buying a boat. This task is never as easy as it may sound, and I am sure that being a boat-buying consultant would be a hard but honourable profession. Much easier, however, would be to create a few guidelines to help anyone wondering how to choose a sports boat between 15 and 25ft long (4.6-7.6m).

The purpose of this series of articles is to create a checklist, suitable for everyone from the person trying to get their family on the water for the first time to the hardy seadog retiring from the tyranny of tacking and keels but desperate to spend time on the water.

We will look at types of boat, hull design and construction, where to keep the boat, what options exist for power, safety, security, sports boat insurance and, of course, what you can expect to get for your money.

First things first

The problem with sports boats is that there are so many to choose from. Whether they’re promoting RIBs, dories, sports boats, launches and fishing boats, everyone selling any of them will tell you that their boat is perfect for your needs.

So how do you choose a sports boat? The fundamentals are cost and function. Bear in mind, however, that different boats may cost a similar amount to buy but vary enormously over the longer term when depreciation and maintenance are taken into account. Performance varies more than you might imagine, too: boats that behave in a similar manner on a fine summer’s day might reveal widely differing characteristics when it’s cold, rough, wet and windy and all you want to do is get home.

Before you go too far down the decision-making road when considering how to choose a sports boat, two vital questions you have to ask yourself are where you’re going to keep your sports boat and what sort of engine you want. We’ll take a quick look at the options here, because they’re fundamental to everything that follows, and then come back to them in more detail in later articles.

Where to keep it

Your budget, combined with your sports boat’s size and weight, will play a large part in determining whether you launch and dry sail, leave it on a mooring, put it in a marina or use one of the ever-growing number of dry-stack facilities.

If your car is big enough, keeping the boat on a trailer at home lets you explore different waters and keep it free of antifouling. It’s also by far the cheapest option. Make sure that you check that your sports boat insurance policy provides transit cover for trailored boats.

Moorings are often relatively inexpensive, too, but the most economical ones will probably dry out at low tide so you need to bear that in mind in the context of engine choices (not all will let you take the ground) and when you can use the boat.

Marinas are likely to increase your use as they are a step-on-and-go option, great for loading and unloading, and in reality you will often get more use for your money.

Dry berths (where the boats are lifted into racks by large fork-lift trucks) save on the costs and inconvenience of antifouling the hull, though of course there are limits to the weight, height and draught of boats that can be accommodated.

It’s clear that where you choose – or can afford – to keep the boat has to be considered at the outset. Think about how much you will use it and divide this into the cost of each option, not forgetting antifouling, servicing and maintenance. A small sports boat will typically get from thirty to seventy hours of use a year in our climate, so depending on its purchase cost, where you keep it and how much you use it, running costs can easily be between £40 and £100 per hour – and that’s not including fuel, depreciation or loss of interest on capital.

Choice of engine

As well as where you’re going to keep your sports boat, you need to think about the power options: do you want a four-stroke or two-stroke outboard, a sterndrive or an inboard? Do you favour petrol or diesel?

New four-stroke outboards are quiet and fuel efficient, but older boats with inboard diesels can offer great value and some modern sports boats with inboard petrol engines are under priced because of their lack of economy. Bear in mind that fuel normally accounts for a relatively small percentage of the total cost of running a sports boat, so it might still be worth considering a petrol inboard.

The simple fact is that most small sports boats don’t get a lot of hard use. A day out might include several hours when the engine isn’t even running – when you’re fishing, at anchor or on the beach. Only worry about fuel if you’re going to do some serious mileage for wakeboarding, diving or passage-making, and then get realistic consumption figures from owners of similar boats. Of course the size of engine will affect consumption, but the boat is often the principal factor here because it needs the same amount of pushing along whatever the engine’s size. A bigger engine working less hard might be more economical than a smaller one running flat out. Hard facts can be difficult to find, so ask around.

Beware of the older two-stroke outboards, even the oil-injection ones. They use a lot of fuel and are often noisy and lumpy at low speeds. However, if an older boat is cheap enough, you might be able to fit a new outboard with a five-year warranty and end up with an attractive package for less than you imagined.

If you want to tow toys, a skier or a wakeboard, a boat with a larger engine may be needed, but carrying lots of weight will kill performance. Similarly, a boat that’s built more heavily is likely to need more power (depending on its hull shape) to achieve any given speed. Sports boats of a similar length can vary in weight enormously.

Over the next few months we will compare different power units in a realistic way, as users in different situations would experience them.

Thinking safe

When thinking of how to choose a sports boat, whatever type of boat appeals to you, safety can’t be ignored. Every sports boat user should have at least an RYA Level 2 qualification or equivalent experience, but often the boats themselves have poor handling qualities and are difficult to use. The marketing of sports boats rarely encourages investment in decent waterproofs instead of a bimini top, but in the UK the weather does change quickly. I have used my bimini once, and that was to keep the rain off!

Unlike yachts, which possess inherent stability and usually provide somewhere to shelter, small sports boats can be cold, uncomfortable and sometimes downright scary. Not all sports boat builders appear to place a high priority on safety. Safety equipment is often an extra, and some things, such as space for an auxiliary motor, self-draining cockpits and large mooring cleats can be difficult or impossible to fit later.

I always try to imagine myself in the boat as the light fades, the breeze has picked up and I’m trying to get home with wind over tide. Would this boat make me feel safe and secure? How stable is it really? Can I pump it out and, if the worst came to the worst, could it sink?

Choosing a hull shape

There has been a quiet revolution in small sports boat design in recent years. Walk under the boats in a dry-stack facility and you will see that older boats (those built before 2003/4) often have different hull shapes from the newer ones. The changes might appear subtle, but have given newer boats the ability to plane more readily, pushing over less of a ‘hump’ between displacement and planing speeds, and to maintain higher speeds with less power. That said, there are some older hull-forms, like the ‘Dromedile’ used by the With (pronounced ‘Witt’) designs that have been around for decades and are still highly efficient.

Boats that look very different above the waterline will often have much in common below it. For example, modern RIBs and centre-console rigid boats share many similarities, because when it comes to moving through the water they’re essentially doing a similar job with a similar size of engine.

The obvious differences when you’re walking around a marina are in the types of layout – open, centre console, walk-around, cabin and so on – and it’s these, together with the hull-shape, size, price and engine options that are likely to determine your choice.

We have already talked briefly about engines and where you can keep your boat, so let’s now take a look at hull shapes. Most planing hulls are a variation of the deep V form: they have a V-shape at the entry that progressively flattens towards the stern, and it’s the angle of the V at the transom that’s known as the deadrise.

Other factors being equal, a boat with flatter sections (a shallower V or less deadrise) will plane more readily for any given power than will one with a deeper V, so you will go faster for less horse-power. It will also provide greater initial stability (because the chines immerse more readily) and leave less wake, but flatter hulls like this are more prone to slamming in a seaway and will rapidly lose performance once the load exceeds a critical weight.

For all-round use in British coastal waters, a deadrise of 15-18° is generally considered a good compromise, though for a sheltered lake you might be better off with 10-12°. If you need to carry heavier loads or maintain high speeds in choppy waters, it’s worth considering a deadrise of 20-22°. You will need a bigger engine, and stability at rest or low speeds will be slightly reduced, but the gains are in smoothness in the rough and in better ultimate stability.

For the smoothest ride and best handling in a seaway, you can have a greater deadrise still – some builders offer up to 30° - but that’s too much for most leisure users and the wake will be appreciably greater.

With many builders, if you like the boat you have to accept the deadrise, but some – such as Explorer Marine, for example – offer a choice. Explorer’s RIBs come in Sports, Dive or Extreme models with deadrises respectively of 15°, 22° and 28°.

A variation seen especially on older sports boats as well as dories is the cathedral hull form. Essentially it’s a V-sectioned hull with a smaller V on each side, rather like a trimaran that hasn’t developed fully. It provides high initial stability and cathedral-hulled boats tend to have square bows, offering a lot of space for their length.

Their high performance potential and reasonable economy in flat water are offset by greater weight and a tendency to slam in a seaway, though newer dories in particular give a much softer ride than the old ones. The same is true for many other types of boat, but be careful: plenty of older-generation designs are still available in new packaging.

Variations on a theme

Many hulls are Vs with variations, such as steps running athwartships to let air under the hull and reduce friction, or tunnels to channel the water along the hull and over the propeller(s). Fore-and-aft spray rails in one form or another are almost universal, designed to deflect the water and increase lift, though their number and form vary enormously. Any of these features might enhance performance, but bear in mind that they will make antifouling and hull-preparation more of a chore.

An increasingly popular alternative to single-hulled planing craft is the catamaran. Power cats have been used for years by commercial operators and have now spread into the leisure market, led by builders such as Powercat, Cheetah and Dazcat.

The benefits of two slim hulls include smoothness of ride (enhanced by the ‘air-cushion’ effect of air trapped between the hulls), low wake, plenty of space because of the rectangular shape, high stability, negligible rolling, good directional stability, and fuel economy because they don’t need large engines to push them over the hump and on to the plane. On the down-side are their lower top speed than an equivalent RIB or sports boat and their more sedate handling: they can’t be thrown into tight circles at speed, so driving one is more like riding a tricycle than a bicycle. Most cats tend to have two engines, each with its own battery and fuel tank: good for safety and slow-speed manoeuvrability, but two engines don’t provide the same thrust as a single one of double the horse-power.

If you’re not after high performance, you have alternatives when choosing a sports boat ranging from the displacement launch such as the Plymouth Pilot to the Dutch ‘Sloep’, a generic type that’s usually double-ended and of simulated clinker construction. The latter often has a ‘skirt’ beneath the waterline to carry the displacement and allow the hull to plane with larger (usually inboard) engines.

Boat and layouts

Many people choosing a small sports boat now automatically go straight for a RIB. They’re renowned for their seaworthiness but not always the most practical choice: the tubes not only deteriorate in sunlight and sometimes suffer damage from weed-growth, but they also take up a lot of space and limit the seating options. For diving and rescue work RIBs can be hard to beat and their built-in fendering from the tubes makes it safer and easier to come alongside other boats, but for private use it’s worth considering alternatives – including RIB-style boats built in aluminium and moulded plastic.

A rigid-hulled boat generally offers more space for its length and you will often find the big manufacturers offering the same hull in a variety of forms, from totally open to ‘walk-around’ (with a centre console possibly incorporating a small cabin), as a ‘day-cruiser’ with a large cockpit protected by a windscreen, or with a cabin.

Walk-around and centre-console boats are great for short handed and family use, because being able to anchor and moor without sliding down a slippery coachroof is a confidence-building experience and will not put off more nervous passengers. The real advantage of this layout is space: with no room lost to a cabin or cuddy the whole boat is one massive cockpit, and this comes into its own when you’re fishing, swimming or on the beach. Many of the older British boats such as the Micro Plus and Shetland have cuddies or small cabins, which are great for protection and allow over-nighting. Inevitably, a cabin reduces cockpit space and restricts access to the bows unless a fore hatch is fitted that’s large enough to work through.

Every weekend some of the best sport is watching families returning to the marina in an American sports boat with tiny cleats and nowhere to stand outside the cockpit. Their blowing around is accompanied by violent revving and gear changing as the poor crew tries to fend off anything and everything. Get the boat wrong and you can end up factoring divorce costs and counselling for the children into your running costs.

Most modern boats are GRP, but don’t forget aluminium day boats – aluminium is very strong for its weight – and, whatever the construction, look at the build quality and the finish. Open the lockers and poke around, and if in any doubt solicit the opinion of someone qualified to advise you. If there’s foam to make it unsinkable in an older boat, is it still dry, or is it waterlogged and disintegrating?

What’s in a Name?

Names can be confusing. Many manufacturers build in Eastern Europe, Cyprus or Turkey but often have French or Italian brand names. Famous brands are often built by the same company: Boston Whaler, Quicksilver, Mercury outboards and Trophy are all Brunswick Marine brands. This in itself doesn’t mean they’re better or worse than offerings from independent companies. After all, VW, Skoda and Audi are under the same ownership and built in various countries. Being part of a larger company can offer its advantages, while a small builder can give you the personal touch and more scope for customisation.

As we said at the beginning, if you love boats you probably can see strengths in almost any boat. In the following articles we will look in more detail at the factors that should influence your decisions about which is the best one for you.

Next month: where to keep your boat.