I want a boat for doing short trips. I'm thinking of buying a small fishing boat, about 14ft. Anyone have any experience of boating?
You'll enjoy a small fishing boat. The larger pleasure type boats, 25 feet and up become the money pits. Unless you can do plenty of maintenance yourself they will drain an account. Best two days of a boaters life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it. All that said, I love boating and the marina life is always entertaining. I tell people what I miss most about my ex wife is her dad's boat. Get that fishing boat, it'll be fun.
That's a very nice boat but Whalers are uber expensive now for what they are. You could probably buy a 30' twin engine cabin cruiser that same age for less.
My advice would be to get a bathtub in the 14-22' range with an outboard motor (not an I/O). The simpler, the better and avoid any bell/whistle that could break. Everything on a boat takes a beating. A 'nice' boat can so easily eat up all your leisure time with headaches.
Whalers are great boats. 14 ft is a great size maintenance wise. But its going to be rough in open waters.
I live near dinner key Marina in the grove and it's my favorite bike/run course. Often I can sit there for hours just looking at the masts sway.
Yeah, having owned the 30' cabin cruiser of that age I would definitely agree that the Whaler is far easier to maintain. It really depends on what you're going to do, if you're hanging out in inlets or the mouths of streams nothing beats the Whaler. If you want to go any distance or more than a mile or two offshore, it's definitely less comfortable. But it won't sink unless it catches on fire, so it's got that going for it.
https://thedyrt.com/magazine/local/everglades-chickees/ 100% agreed. This is where I've gone with my friends 15ft whaler.