I promise I tried to format this wall of text to make it readable.
I am getting a quote on a new boat tomorrow, i
may have convinced the wife to upgrade the budget to afford new. Which of course makes this like Christmas eve for me, which is why i am up at
midnight now closer to 1 am on a work night. This post took a while to type as i am convincing myself as much as anyone.
I am getting a quote on both a 33 and a 29 foot panga. The below picture is the 33. I would get the boat without the t-top, pretty gelcoat, but with a trolling motor i think i can come in somewhere in the 60-70 range brand new with twins and possibly less with the 29. I want to see what the quote is on both the 29 and 33 to compare.
https://www.facebook.com/pangaboat/posts/1096948343720761
The owner was awesome and I am waiting for him to get the quote back to me. He seemed very flexible and i could even provide my own parts and complete the majority of the finish work myself. I want him to get back quickly as i am interested
in the used console/t-top. Outfitting part of the boat with used parts would greatly reduce cost. Another cost reducer is the wiring, I would love to wire the boat as i do not think most people do a good job. Although I saw a picture of their wiring and it looks pretty good.
Panga style boats have a very long list of both pros and cons. There is a reason you do not see them too much in America.
Cons:
- Narrow beam which causes more rocking motion when drifting
- Extremely limited seating
- no livewell
- no in deck fish storage
- Possibly no t-top initially
- not the fastest boat
- Maybe no leaning post/seat initially
- low gunnel height (and my son turns 4 shortly, higher gunnels would be nice)
- No flotation(I like boston whaler, mckee, cape horn, sea hunt, etc where if it is swamped it still floats)
- difficult to mount a trolling motor
- would be expensive to store in a place that does price per foot, a wider shorter boat would be better
Pros:(
there is a reason this design is used by much of the commercial fisherman in developing countries)
- 3-4 mpg with twins
ridiculous, my last offshore boat averaged 1.1 mpg
- This is like comparing a 3/4 pickup truck to a Prius. 3-4 times better fuel economy.
[*]initial purchase price, used 15 year old boats are similarly priced at this point.
[*]Durable
[*]Gets skinny, which is good for wintertime fishing when i cannot run offshore
My goal is to fish:
- 110 miles offshore 1-2 times a year for yellowfin tuna.
- 80-90 miles offshore 1-3 times a year for swords, tilefish, deep grouper, etc.
- 30-60 miles offshore 4-5 times a year for mahi mahi, snapper, blackfin tuna.
- 3-10 miles offshore 6-8 times a year for Cobia, King Mackerel, small state water snapper, etc with my kids on some trips
- inshore 5-10 times a year for trout, redfish, flounder, sheepshead, black drum, etc with my kids on some trips
Trying to find a boat that does all of that on a tight budget is difficult.
Although 95% of my fishing will be 30-50 miles offshore, nearshore, or inshore. But i think it is doable. These boats handle the chop and get ridiculous fuel economy, there is a reason every commercial fisherman in the developing world uses this style of boat for offshore purposes.
edit:
@Ron Swanson
Although my guess is you would have read my post eventually.
