Thread subject: Whaler Central - Boston Whaler Boat Information and Photos :: 27 whaler full cabin

Posted by Silentpardner on 11/19/14 - 12:13 AM
#13

Thanks for the compliments on the boat.

I don't have any experience keeping a Whaler hull in the water year round, as I keep the Outrage 18 on a trailer when it is not in use. I keep the Whaler 27 FC in dry storage when it is not in use, at all times of the year. This allows me to inspect the boat every time I have the boat launched and retrieved, from the outside of the boat. I can correct any problems with water intrusion into the hull before they become apparent from the inside-the-boat view in this manner.
Gelcoat and fiberglass do not prevent water intrusion into the foam inside it, even though it is commonly perceived that way. There are other threads here on site and at least one article, I believe, that discuss the migration of water through gelcoat/fiberglass shells on Boston Whaler boats. Bottom paint prevents this, or at least slows it down, depending on its quality.
I do have bottom paint on the Whaler 27, but I intend to remove it in the future, if the removal of the bottom paint on my Outrage 18 works as advocated by local boatbuilders I employ, as well as advocates for this procedure among the classic Boston Whaler enthusiasts on this site and around the web. The jury is still out in my mind on this issue, but due to my trailering of this boat, I am willing to try this.
I would say it is mandatory to pull and clean, as well as re-coat any hull used in saltwater docking at a minimum frequency of once a year. I would recommend pulling a hull kept in this way at least 2 times a year, as I have actual experience with larger sportfishers that stay in the water all the time, and I have seen some pretty expensive repairs on fiberglass hulls required that could have been much less expensive if the problem had been caught earlier. Some problems I have noted in the past were the direct result of bonding issues between the hull and the bottom paint.
There is always the risk of stray electrical currents in marina waters that you cannot control. No matter how well designed and maintained that your own boat's electrical system is, you can't control the same on someone else's boat. Stray electrical currents can seriously reduce the life of your boats anode system, and can also cause premature corrosion of your engines, leading to more costly repairs/replacement. This is another, and arguably the "best", reason why I choose to dry-stack my Whaler 27 FC. I didn't have this option with the sportfishers.
This is what I meant by the use of the word "preservation" in my response.

There is a lot square footage of the hull of the boat actually submerged in the water at the dock. Actually, although I have not actually calculated this, it appears that at least half of the hull would be underwater at all times at a dock. You wont ever see this huge area of hull until you pull the boat.
I use the boat most in the months between march and October, but I try to make a trip or two per month in the remaining months of the year when the weather permits. Currently, over the last 2 weeks or so, the seas in the Gulf have been between 3' and 15', and at short intervals in high winds and rain, so trips are at a minimum...even the Whaler 27 FC is uncomfortable to operate and fish from in these conditions. :)

I think the best thing you can do for any boat and engine is to use them as regularly as possible, they all seem to last longer. Any maintenance issues that arise from use, or disuse, are quickly noticed as they develop and can be corrected before they become more serious and expensive to address. If your engines have 900 hrs on them, it could indicate a regular use of 100 hr/yr, or it could indicate 300 hrs/yr for only three years. You would need to know positively the actual use, as well as maintenance, of the engines to really be able to confidently project their lifespan, but from experience, 2500 hrs on well maintained and regularly used 2-strokes is not uncommon. Some folks have gotten a lot more out of these engines.
It is a bit of crapshoot to predict reality when you are buying a used set of engines. I personally would not figure value of the engines you are looking at any higher than $5000 into the overall price of the boat, and I would shoot for less, as the actual resale value could be much less.

The custom kicker mount you see on that Whaler 27 FC was built by the previous owner. It is truly custom. I have plans for it's removal from the boat completely, as I don't expect to ever have a kicker on the boat for my use in the future. When I remove it, I will look you up if you wind up purchasing the boat you are looking at. You are welcome to it :) It supported a 4-stroke Yamaha 50 with a large propeller, (not a standard), on my Whaler 27 when I purchased it, and with that combination, could actually push that boat faster than was ever needed for salmon and lake trout trolling. I never actually measured the prop that was being used, but it worked well for low speed thrust. I would recommend this HP engine because I know it worked well, but I don't have any other experience with HP's of kicker engines applied to this size and weight of boat for reference.
The kicker motor was completely remote controlled on my boat when I purchased it. I don't see how it could have been operated by a tiller-handle control motor. The Whaler Drive it is mounted to is behind the backside of the full transom. I could only imagine the difficulty of trying to operate a kicker with a tiller handle on this boat, but I would consider this impossible.
The kicker motor was fueled from a separate auxiliary 25 gallon aluminum fuel tank installed in the same cavity of the boat as the original 170 gallon tank, on top of the original tank. There was, and is, enough room to do this in these boats. This auxiliary tank is still in place in the boat, and I now have it plumbed into my fuel supply lines for reserve capacity.
There are alternatives to using a plastic on-deck accessory tank to supply a kicker that we could, and should in my opinion, discuss before settling on this option. Plumbing the kicker to the existing fuel tank would certainly be my own preference over having a small portable tank in the cockpit.

It occurs to me that you may have not yet fully grasped the actual size of the boat you are going to look at Sunday :) I think you may be astounded. I think you really need to see one of these boats, out of the water and up close, before you get to thinking about kicker motor size and fuel supply. Once you actually see this vessel and walk around it, I think you will understand. IT is a BIG boat :)

Make sure you look at the wiring and plumbing on the boat you are looking at very closely. Take pictures of the electrical system and steering hydraulic lines and helm through the access door in the head. Take pictures of the wiring and fuel and hydraulic lines inside the transom at the batteries, ( the center fishwell in the transom should pull out from the top of the transom). Take pictures of the battery charger and wiring, it should be located behind the access opening on the port side of the interior in the helm area of the boat. Take pictures under every access hatch you can remove, and get some pics of the holding tanks and the hot water heater and plumbing. Run water at the taps to check for leaks and make sure the drains work, as well as making sure the freshwater supply pump works. Make sure that the freshwater is coming from the holding tank, and not from the raw water washdown pump and system, these are 2 separate systems. Make sure the head actually works and flushes properly. Take pictures of everything on the boat that could be hard for you to see otherwise, and even take pictures of the stuff you think you see well.
Study all these pictures, and show them to others that you trust as knowledgeable about conditional issues of boats in your area offline, not just here on the internet. Compare these photos to the ones that I have posted at my Flickr site. Keep in mind the cost of ownership I have already discussed above, then make your decision. Remember, I have not had to do any work at all on the electrical or plumbing systems of the boat I purchased including the appliances, that was already pristine at the time of my purchase, and it all works to this day as it did originally.

After you have actually looked this boat over, I would be glad to talk with you about it on the phone if you are still interested in it. :)