Inboard Or Outboard?

[pauljm]

Hey raiders....got a mate looking at buying a 16 or 17 foot fibreglass cuddy or half cabin as a general fishing and family boat including towing the kids on tubes etc....he has seen a few he likes but they have stern drives which he is unsure about...all i know about them is we used to have a 25 bertie with legs and they used to give us nothing but trouble.....anyone had one in a smaller boat? He is looking at spending around 10 to 12k.....any thoughts?

[a boat]

Hi, I have not seen any 4.8M or 5.2M cuddy cabins with sterndrives-that is too small a boat to fit a heavy sterndrive engine and leg especially in a 16 foot boat. Also for his budget it will most likely be an automative engine that someone has fitted and not a true marinized engine with all the safety extras like flame arrestor etc they should have. In that size and price range i would look at outboards because yes as you say a sterndrive can be a costly power plant to maintain.

Cheers,

Huey.