DamonH

Hello all. My wife and I live in SoCal and looking at our first boat. While I remember the days growing up and fishing with my grandfather every summer, it was always on the lake.

While I intend to be back out on the lake we would like to do some coastal boating as well as say going to channel islands.

So.... We are looking at a brand new Chaparral 22'. Its within our budget and definatly fits our lake needs, but I am concerned on the coastal safety. Is it big enough for day cruising along the coastal waters? I've been watching the water reports and it looks like at least this week from longbeach 2-4' swells, and santa cruz are 4-6' swells. While I would be OK with the 2-4 I would worry about 4+. I will be talking with the dealer this weekend after the demo. I want to see what a 24' would set me back.

Look forward to replies and sorry if this is in the wrong place.

Cheers!
Damon

P.S. feel free to email me. Thanks!

bc22

It's always a great time to be buying a boat
r u planning to do any fishing or is this boat for cruising and boating?
as it's a buyer's market, there are many late model nice boat to choose. But dealers would love to shed some excess lot inventory too so pricing will likely be agressive for a new one (i prefer a late model used as many very lightly owned can be found for nice prices).
I'm not too familiar with chaparral but i think the boat is aimed at the fresh water market and not sure how well it would fair in a messy coastal condition.

Any boat is a compromise, u just need to figure out what is most important and most used function and go with that.

Consider how agressive the bow entry and deadrise needs to be for tackling the conditions you will encounter. The relatively long runs to the channell isles in "decent' condition is no place for a 20-25' lake boat, the 'stable/flatter hull' will pound the family to bits.

What $ range do u have in mind?

DamonH

Hi bc22.
Thanks for the reply. From my research the Chaparral has two lines. a) the Bowriders/deck boat. b) the signature line which is cruiser.
The '08 model we are looking at is the 224 which is a very nice deck boat. The dealer keeps telling me it will make the run to catalina and back, but I am at this point uneasy about that from what I have been able to learn.

We went to another dealer yesterday and talked a long time with him. He showed us a nice 24' Bayliner with a wonderful cabin and cockpit layout. Unfortunately it's about 10k over what we can afford. Our budget is 50k absolute max.

What we are looking for is a boat that I can hit the lakes with for some fishing and simple relaxation since we have a weekender up in Frazier Park. And something we could run up and down the coast for day trips or out the channel islands.

As I told the dealer last night my main concerns are SAFETY and maintenance. If it looked like a million dollars while fitting my needs that would be a bonus.
But, then there is my wife. She has to be happy with the boat. Layout, looks etc. So it's kinda tough.

He did show us an '05 24' Bayliner with a cabin. Not much seating and looked rather utilitarian. Not much in the way of amenenities. But it fit our pocket at 43k out the door.

So, all said I am still looking. I liked the fact that the dealer we went to last night they have been in business for many years and have service centers all up and down the west coast.

Chaparral doesn't.

AS for buy used vs. new, my only concern is that as a new boat owner I have a bit to learn, so with a new I would have the comfort of learning BEFORE something went wrong. With a used, even if I bought from a dealer I am still buying someone elses problems.

So, there we are. This weekend I plan on going to Longbeach to check out another dealer and we are still going out to test the Chappie. I figured wouldn't hurt to see how it ran. We may decide that an ocean capable boat is not what we want, in which case the Chappie would be fine for lake.


Thanks for the input.