We recently bought a Kingfisher 3125 GFX. Our first boat. The boat is 37’ LOA, 10’ beam, has twin 300hp Mercury outboards, is made of aluminum, has a smallish cabin, a refrigerator, one head (just installed a composting toilet), a two burner alcohol stove (fast boat, slow coffee), and is trailerable. This forum helped immensely in our choice.
Over the past few years we visited boat shows, marinas, and brokerages. We looked at trawlers and tugs. I fell deeply in love with a 46’ Tolleycraft. Then....we bought a small (16’) camper trailer. We love the camper! We have to walk around each other to move about in it, but find it’s coziness very appealing. After multiple long trips the appeal hasn’t worn off one bit.
So why would we need a large boat if a small camper fits all of our needs? Our little camper allows us to go where larger campers can’t, and it’s easy to maneuver. Maybe a smaller boat would give us some of the same advantages.
I started spending more time on the TF to learn about liveability issues on boats, engine issues, and boat handling. This forum is great! We learned that small would work for us — especially since we’ve never experienced large.
We’ve also learned that we can maintain this boat and it won’t break our bank account. Now we’re living on it until sometime in October. We plan to live on it all next summer. Maybe in a couple of years we’ll trailer it to the Great Lakes and boat there for a couple of years.
I remember in one discussion on TF someone mentioned that many people have the fondest memories of the smaller boat that they used to own. So...we downsized our thinking and bought a smaller boat.