Fishin' For A Boat? Go Aluminum

SHOPPING FOR a new boat can be almost as much fun as using it. Here's what one search for a relatively inexpensive fishing boat turned up.

Puget Sound sport fishermen dream of this boat:

Gleaming, white fiberglass, 20 feet long . . . one, two, perhaps three motors . . . gunwales bristling with downriggers and pole holders . . . padded bucket seats and amenities worthy of a luxury car.

Wake up. Here's reality:

It gulps gas. You feel bad about filling its 40-gallon tank. You feel worse about emptying it.

You tow the boat, you fry your nerves and clutch. A fiberglass boat may weigh as much - or more - than the vehicle towing it.

You beach it, you pop little holes in the gelcoat.

It probably won't fit in your garage. It will fill your driveway and force you to park on the street.

It won't stay gleaming and white very long. The sun fades it.

It costs five figures. Maybe five large figures.

You get herring guts on that nice upholstery.

Low-impact fishing machine

Sure, these drawbacks are not as pronounced in the smallest glass boats. And the big boats do have some nice creature comforts to recommend them. But in my case, anyway, comfort lost out to the discomforts of owning such a boat. I sold it.

Instead, I turned to a class of boats that can be reasonably priced and inexpensive to operate. I traded down, to a low-impact fishing machine:

Aluminum.

The new boat has one-fifth the weight. A 25-horse motor moves it smartly (in fact, it's as fast as the old boat, which had 115 horses).

It's frugal with gas, which makes me feel like less of an eco-criminal.

It trailers easy. If the motor ever conks out, oars are an option, albeit a slow one. Rowing the old boat, which weighed approximately one ton, would have been a laughable impossibility.

Yet the new boat is roomy, beamy and still feels safe most days on the Sound.

Not for everyone

These boats aren't for everybody. These are fishin' boats and a bit Spartan.

Some of the smaller ones, say 14 feet or smaller, are probably not prudent on salt water. The Coast Guard reminds us that even a 40-foot boat is dangerous on Puget Sound if the skipper doesn't heed the weather and sea state and doesn't know when to stay home.

But not all aluminum boats are tippy car-toppers that leak at the seams. Aluminum boats come in lengths up to 22 feet. Some are 6 to 7 feet wide. They have pricey optional features peddled in glossy sales brochures.

To keep models and features straight, I created the accompanying comparison chart of boats that fit my garage, budget and safety threshold: lengths of 15 to 16 feet with hull prices less than $3,000.

(The budget for boat, motor, trailer and accessories was five to six grand.)

I used a tape measure and checked hull plates to confirm information given in the brochures (and found that one manufacturer seemed to fib a bit). The chart reflects some of those observations.

Find your priorities

Everyone's priorities are different. But charting is a technique that'll help you make sense of whatever boat interests you: big, small, aluminum, glass, in whatever price range. Compare the boats. Climb in them. Find a way to take a ride, although dealers are reluctant to do this.

The chart revealed some stark differences but it failed to answer one question: What construction method is best? Aluminum boats are riveted. Or welded. Even snapped together.

Every salesman champions his boat's construction and berates the competition. A riveted-boat salesman really got to me with this line: "Boeing doesn't weld its airplanes, does it?" (Well, Boeing probably does weld some jumbo-jet parts but is undeniably fond of rivets.)

Each method has points in its favor.

"You have to ask yourself: What purpose is it for?" says John Possin, who teaches aluminum boat building at Bates Technical College. "Most commercial boats are welded for durability, but they are heavier than sport boats. The thinner the boat is . . . the harder to successfully weld.

"Riveted boats have flexibility. That's why they rivet airplanes. But a lot of pounding in rough water can indeed cause riveted boats to leak."

A hometown alternative to welds and rivets is the Duroboat line, made in Seattle. The company uses a patented process called the "durojoint" in which sheet metal is snapped into reinforced seams, a plastic extrusion is forced into the joint, and the joint is sealed - sort of the cold equivalent of a weld.

"Once you get into gauges over a 10th of an inch, which is workboat stuff, welded is a great way to go," President and owner Keith Rogstad said. "But in the lighter gauges the durojoint is going to be stronger."

Since 1983, Rogstad's company has built about 5,000 Duroboats, he said. "There was one case where a durojoint pulled apart, where the sheet metal came out of the extrusion - it was a boat that fell off a car on the freeway."

Boats are warranted against leaks. Is the length of a boat's warranty a clue to its durability?

"I think most people pick a boat as a matter of preference more than warranty," Possin said. "Yet if you're inexperienced and don't know exactly what you want in a boat, then you'll probably want to depend on the warranty."

Possin teaches boat welding. "But I own a riveted boat, too," he said. "You've got to have one of everything, right?"