How to Pick a Family Boat

Before you plunk down a ton of cash for a family or party boat, here are some important features to look for on an ideal family boat.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Familiarize yourself with the equipment and accessories on a family boat that provide comfort and convenience. These features include ample seating, shade-providing structures, shelter from stormy weather, bathroom facilities, tables and adequate storage space. Make a list of your priorities in ranked order.

2. Familiarize yourself with the 6 basic types of family and party boats: walk-around cuddy, deck boat, pontoon boat, cuddy-cabin, bow rider and center-console. If you need a fast boat for towing sports or for running to distant fishing spots, you can eliminate pontoon boats.

3. Compare the list of features and equipment you want with the various boat types available. A walk-around cuddy is most likely to have the greatest number of features needed for comfort, convenience and performance in a family or party boat. Deck boats and their slower cousins pontoon boats can have every feature on a long list except for shelter from storms. Center-console boats are usually the sparsest in terms of creature comforts.

4. Choose the type of propulsion system you want on your family boat. The choices are outboard, conventional stern-drive, stern jet-drive and inboard. Outboards are the most popular, but stern-drives are less expensive to maintain and allow you to use the boat's stern area for recreation. Choose a jet drive if you plan to spend a lot of time in shallow water or around marine animals. Inboards are favored by water-skiing fans because of the balance and even wake they produce.

5. Grab your checkbook and start shopping--you now know exactly the type of boat you are looking for, except for the length. The length will be the final determinant of how much you will spend.

Tips & Warnings

• Thunderstorms are a commonplace summer event in most of the country, and you will wish you had a small cabin on your boat every time you get smacked by a downpour.
• Having an enclosed bathroom facility on a boat helps keep a party going when you are out on the water. Many guests will call it a day when they have to use the bathroom and there's no option but going in the water or using a bucket.
• Other features to put on your checklist are an anchor locker on the bow, and a livewell and fish box if fishing is a high priority.