Bayliner 160 Capri Bowrider w/ Mercury 90HP - SOLD

The words ‘boat’ and ‘economical’ rarely go together, but this Bayliner 160 bowrider is different!.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a small family day boat to have a bit of fun with during the summer months, but have been put off, either by the prohibitively high cost of entry, or the depressing state of ‘more affordable’ offerings, then this Bayliner 160 could be a revelation.

We don’t sell very many boats around this price point for good reason…

A lot of them are unfortunately complete junk! They’ve been used and abused. Maintenance has been neglected. They’ve been left lying out in the elements – upholstery is torn, floors are rotten, gauges don’t work. And for that reason I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

Quite frankly I find the zero to around£5k market terrifying. And I know what I’m doing! For a first timer buying a £5k boat it’s like sending a lamb to slaughter!

For every decent boat, there must be a dozen or more clangers, and it’s not hard to see why so many people unfortunately end up in abject misery after buying a ‘bargain boat’. Just think, something with a knackered engine, that you can’t sell, blocking up the driveway and having to listen to the wife’s “I told you so’s”!

No.

Normally you need to spend closer to £10k to get a nice, clean, reliable sports bowrider (and even then you still need you’re wits about you).

But this Bayliner 160 is happily an exception to the rule.

It’s an immaculate little boat that has been well maintained and well cared for. The gel coat is beautiful, the floor is solid, the upholstery and carpets are perfect, the gauges and switches all work and the motor is reliable. It ticks all my boxes and is going to be a pleasure to own.

We’re even putting a 3 month engine warranty on it to begin from start of the 2019 season so you can buy it with complete confidence.

And all this, before we’ve even talked about the prudent economics of this particular boat…

Firstly, this boat is obviously not expensive to buy – I mean, for the price of a 2 week family holiday you can have something that you can make memories on every summer weekend for years to come!

Secondly, you should experience virtually no depreciation with this boat. The used boat market is a funny old one to get you’re head around, but it has a few ‘magic numbers’ – that is prices around which boats will stabilise at for several years or more. £10k is one of those such numbers. A lot of 17 to 20ft sportsboats will depreciate to around £10k after 10 years or so and then stick at that value for years to come. £5k is another magic number. This is basically the rock bottom price for any half decent sports boat. Once they hit £5k they stick at this for ever! (If they are maintained in good condition). If you think I’m wrong just go try to buy a nice clean reliable sports boat for less than £5k and see what you can come up.

So, you could keep this boat for 5 years and it’s still gonna be worth £5k or very close to it (provided you look after it!) when you come to sell.

Thirdly, running costs are as low as they get for a proper little sports bowrider. Since this boat has the largest engine option you don’t need to cane it to get it up on the plane and run at 20knots, so you can run the boat at half throttle and burn very little fuel. Being a 2-stroke motor it’s very cheap to service, with annual maintenance around £150 or so. You can store it at home. And insurance is minimal. All in all, this is a boat that can be run and maintained on the smallest of budgets.

I really can’t think of a reason why you wouldn’t buy it…!!!

It should come then as no surprise that I own on myself!

If you think this might be the boat for you, please watch our video tour.

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