Boating Magazine's Insider's Guide to Buying a Powerboat: Featuring Tips and Traps for the Smart Boat Buyer

This book is short and easy to read, but contains outstanding advice. It walks you through the process of figuring out what type of boat might work best for you, and then helps you locate and evaluate potential boats. The checklists were great - they helped us be very thorough in looking over boats, and helped us realize when we found a boat that was a great steal. In addition, the author walks you through the negotiating process and gave us tips that saved us hundreds of dollars. He deals with the emotions of the process, which was very helpful as well. We always negotiate on all our purchases, but some of the tips here were new to me and worked extremely well. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone thinking about buying a boat.

I have never owned a boat and this book opens the eyes of the new comer to boating when it comes to buying a boat. Lots of good tips for the buyer, and even someone selling a boat could be helped by this book.The writer is concise, and he puts in lots of lists to help with the buying project. Follow the list and you will do a lot better in looking over the prospective boat. Simple terms are used, and the terms that are common to boating are explained in an easy to read fashion. The best part of the book is how the author explains the insiders tips for buying a boat. The title isn't kidding. The writer really lets you in on the scoop of how the boating dealerships work and how they get you to buy a boat a their price. He warns the reader that there are no standards in the boating industry (at least nothing comparable to the auto industry) and he points out how to arrive at a competent buying decision. What to look for in the sea trial is an excellent portion of this buyer's manual. I recommend this book to anyone new to boating who is even thinking about purchasing a boat.

The way I figure it, if this book costs 11.96, it paid for itself 334 times over when I bought an 11k (book value) boat for 7k. Even my insurance agent said "wow... that's a good deal" when she asked what my purchase price was. I also used this to sell my old boat in a week using only a $1.28 sign for my marketing. That got me $3500 to put down on my boat. Even if you are only going to buy 1 boat, this book is well worth owning.

This book delivers on its' promise to level the playing field for the new/used boat buyer. Ideas, tips, and traps presented in the book are all relevent and insightful. Good references and web sites are provided for further research. Especially useful are the "author's picks" section (for boat brands), the new and used boat checklists, negotiations, survey/inspections, and techniques for dealing with salepeople. At less than 200 pages it's a reference you can put in your pocket and take with you when shopping. Before you buy a boat, buy this book!

This book is extremely informative and well organized. Every step in the boat buying process is covered in terms easily understood by a first-time boat buyer (such as myself). After reading this book, I feel confident that I will be able to (1) find, negotiate, and purchase my first boat (at a great deal), and (2) be able to identify those boats/deals which are best left alone. I highly recommend this book!