Before Posting, Please Read Our Posting Guidelines Below.
1. Use the full 4 digit year for everything you are asking your question about. Example: 1962, 1988, 2000, 2011 2. Include the correct name of your Whaler model. Example: Montauk 17, Montauk 170, Outrage 26, Outrage 260 3. Include the length when necessary. Example: 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 4. Do not post your email address anywhere on this site as it is already in your user profile.
New Boston Whaler Dauntless owner from Port Huron, MI
Hello to all; I'm a new member today at Whaler Central. I recently purchased a 2007 Whaler Dauntless 180 powered by a 2006 Mercury 150 Verado and sitting on a Phoenix bunk trailer made in East Jordan, MI from Hall's Sport Center in Muskegon, MI. Hall's is not a Whaler dealer but is a Verado certified Mercury dealer that has been around since 1972 and Andy Usik, my salesman, was very accommodating and easy to deal with.
I'm an old geezer who got started with boats and the marina life at age 10 when my dad bought a 1960 Thompson 17ft Sea Lancer powered by the then state of the art Johnson 75hp V4 from Jerry's Marin in East Tawas, MI. I liked the boat but fell in love with the marina, hanging around the boat riggers handing them tools, bailing 14ft aluminum rental boats for 50cents a piece and finally getting to know and working with the old sage Johnson mechanic there who took me under his wing. By age 16 I was working beside him tuning up the smaller motors, changing lower unit oil, servicing water pumps and the like. At the end of the 1967 season Del Coller, the owner, approached me and my parents with an offer to send me to the 1968 Johnson advanced troubleshooting and new model training at the Johnson school in Waukegan IL. I was elated and my mother who was an elementary school teacher volunteered to travel with me over Easter break to the school where she had to sign waivers to get me into the plant due to the fact I wasn't 18yrs old yet.
By 1972 I had bounced around a few dealers and decided not to turn down an offer to join Ford Motor Co in Dearborn MI where I started a 35yr career with Ford and Visteon in Climate Control first in the HVAC development lab and ending up in the Engineering Office working in prototype material control and program timing positions. During those years I married, raised 3 kids and owned a couple of small outboard boats and a 1995 Four Winns Sundowner with a 5.0L Ford/Volvo IO setup.
Just before retiring I bought a beautiful cedar 1/2-log home in Garden, MI just west of Manistique in Michigan's upper peninsula. The setting there is Garden Bay on Lake Michigan which is part of Big Bay DeNoc and just a few miles from Green Bay. I also bought a 1965 Chris Craft fiberglass Sea Skiff. It was hull number 12 of only 80 fiberglass Sea Skiffs built in the old Cortland New York Thompson plant as Chris Craft entered fiberglass boat manufacturing. It was powered by a Chris Craft converted Chevrolet 327 mated to a Paragon reduction gear and was a conventional inboard. I am still a member of the Chris Craft Commanders website and it happened the webmaster there owned hull number 37 of the fiberglass Sea Skiff run. Between that association and historical information from Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA I gained enough information and guidance to do a pretty good authentic restoration of the Sea Skiff. The boat is in the Chris Craft Commanders Hall of Fame and graces a few pages of a book written by Paul Pletcher, webmaster at the Commanders website on the subject of restoring fiberglass Chris Craft boats. The boat was moved to Garden, MI after completion and used there for a few years in our nearby waters. Recently I sold that boat to Brian Gagnon who is president of the Antique Classic Boat Society. Brian wanted the boat to promote fiberglass boats as full classics along with the wood boats ACBS has historically recognized. My old boat was a star at the fall ACBS meet in Skaneateles NY. Scroll down from the banner at the following link for pictures and the story...
I decided to go a different direction with boats last fall after a second year where the Sea Skiff pretty much sat on the trailer in our garage in Garden due to foul weather. Garden Bay has some serious safety concerns due to the fact there really is no maritime help in the area, the nearest marinas being in Manistique or Escanaba at least 30 nautical miles from us and the nearest USCG station is at Washington Island WI 40 miles away. The most convenient way to get gas for a boat is by trailering it to the local Shell station in town. The Chris Craft was not a real good boat for all of this, it had a 36gallon gas tank and I had the original wood dipstick for a gas gauge. At 20 ft. and about 2800lbs it had no foam flotation whatever so if you hit something and disabled the running gear or worse yet holed the boat you were on your own and could face sinking.
Enter Boston Whaler, Key West and Tidewater boats, all offering modern fiberglass construction and unsinkable hull safety. I looked long and hard at Key West and Tidewater which is currently built in Key West shops as these are similar architecture and price leaders. I finally settled on the used 2007 Boston Whaler 180 Dauntless after numerous dealer visits to look at the boats, the superior quality of build on the Whaler is remarkable and it has the largest following, longest production experience and best use of interior space for my money. I just made the deal on the boat and it will be stored at Hall's Sport Center until May 2015 before I take delivery. I went and looked at it and it has only 68hrs on the Mercury SmartCraft gauges and the hull and trailer are perfect. Can't wait til spring to get the boat and put in Garden Bay.
Those other brands of boats you mentioned aren't bad boats, but they are not Boston Whalers. Key Wests are made right here in the town where I live, so I see a lot of them, but if you look at the quality of the boat and the hardware, they don't compare.
You might appreciate this having been an engineer. My dad was the head of the structures division at NASA. We started our boating life in 1968. We went to a number of boat dealers around the Washington DC area and literally two thirds of them compared their boats to Boston Whalers. My dad said "well, if they are comparing their boats to the Boston Whaler, that must be the brand to buy", so he did.
I've personally owned 6 Whalers since I started buying boats in about 1983, and I've never bought another brand.
It's going to be hard for you to wait until spring!
Now youre spoiled..Ive boated all my life and got into a whaler a little late..however, at this point i feel i will not be floating anything else ever. Good luck with your whaler and welcome to a great site.Happy Holidays
