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Eighteen manufacturers, every series they build and the models underneath them, each specified the same way with a live monthly figure attached. Research the boat properly, then let us handle what it costs.
Most boat research online is either a manufacturer selling you its own range or a classified listing trying to move one specific hull today. Neither tells you what you actually need to know: how a model differs from the one above it, what it costs to run for a season, whether the hull suits the water you live on, and what the monthly number looks like once it is financed sensibly.
This guide is organised the way the decision actually gets made. Start with a manufacturer if you already know the badge you want. Start with a boat type if you know the job the boat has to do but not who builds it. Start with a monthly budget if the payment is the real constraint, which for most buyers it honestly is. All three routes land in the same place: a model page with full specifications, hull and engine detail, real running costs and a payment you can adjust.
Float Finance is a marine lender and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But every page here is written to help you rule boats out, because a loan written on the wrong boat is a bad loan for both of us. Where a model is unsuitable for how you actually boat, the page says so.
Hull shape decides where you can run, how many people fit, what it costs to keep and what it will be worth in five years. The badge on the side comes second.
Walk-around fishability, a dry ride and outboards you can service yourself. The default sa…
The most usable deck space per dollar on the water. Lakes, rivers and big groups, from eig…
Open bow, swim platform and tow-sport capable. The family day boat that does most things, …
Deep-V hulls that hold speed in a real sea state, for long runs to the canyon. Twenty-eigh…
Berths, a head and a working galley. Where a day boat turns into a weekend, from twenty-fo…
Forty feet and up, flybridge or sport. A different survey, a different insurance conversat…
The lowest cost of entry on the water, and still worth financing rather than draining savi…
Each builder has a full guide with its series broken out and every model underneath. Start here if you already know the badge on the hull, and use the boat types above if you do not.
Every model in the guide carries the same field set, so two boats can be read against each other without converting anything. Monthly figures assume fifteen percent down over twenty years at current marine rates.
Dealers make money twice on a boat sale: once on the boat and once on the finance behind it. We only make money if you close, which means our incentive runs in the same direction as yours. Find the right boat, then find the cheapest honest way to own it.
One soft-pull application goes to a panel of marine lenders rather than to whichever bank the dealership happens to work with. You take the best structure that comes back, and you walk into the showroom already financed. That is the strongest position a boat buyer can hold, because the conversation stays about the price of the boat rather than drifting to a monthly payment you said out loud.
Six questions in this order. Answered honestly they cut hundreds of boats down to a shortlist you can actually compare, and they will save you from the most expensive mistake in boating — buying a hull that does not suit the water you live on.
Inland lake, protected bay or open ocean. This is first because it settles hull type, and hull type constrains draft, deadrise, freeboard, fuel capacity and price. A hull built for an Atlantic chop is an expensive choice for a reservoir.
Six adults on a day trip is a different boat from two adults, three children and a weekend of gear. Count the people you actually carry most weekends rather than the maximum you might carry twice a year, and count berths separately from seats.
Fishing, watersports, day cruising or overnighting. Boats that claim to do all four do none of them well. Pick the one that describes seventy percent of your outings, buy for that, and rent or borrow for the rest.
Slip width and length, trailer rating, ramp access and garage or boathouse height cap your size long before your budget does. Confirm what your marina can actually give you before you fall in love with a hull.
Used saves twenty to forty percent up front and puts the first owner's depreciation behind you. New buys warranty, clean history and a simpler lending file. On outboard boats, remember that by year seven the engines are often worth more than the hull.
Purchase price is roughly eighty percent of your first year. Insurance, dockage, winterisation, service, bottom paint and fuel are the rest. Budget eight to twelve percent of purchase price annually for everything except fuel, then add fuel separately.
Tell us how you boat — where, how often, with how many people and what you want to do out there. We come back with a shortlist of three or four models that actually fit, with payments attached to each one.
Move the sliders. This is the same maths our lenders run — the only thing that changes on a real application is the rate they come back with.
Start from a monthly figure you are comfortable with and work backwards to a purchase price, or start from a boat you have found and see what the payment looks like at different terms and down payments.
Illustration only and not an offer of credit. Your actual rate and term depend on credit profile, vessel age, loan amount and ownership structure.
Illustration only and not an offer of credit. Your actual rate and term depend on credit profile, vessel age, loan amount and ownership structure.
The purchase price is not the cost of the boat. As a planning figure that holds across most of the market, budget eight to twelve percent of purchase price annually for everything except fuel — insurance, dockage or storage, winterisation and commissioning, scheduled service, bottom paint and anodes, and a contingency line for canvas, upholstery and electronics.
On a ninety-five thousand dollar boat that is roughly eight to eleven thousand a year. On a boat in the low seven figures it is closer to a hundred thousand. The percentage holds; the absolute number is what surprises people, and it is worth writing down before you look at a single listing.
Fuel sits on top of that and varies more than anything else. A single-engine twenty-two-footer used most weekends might burn four thousand dollars of petrol in a season. A quad-outboard forty-footer fished hard will pass twenty-five thousand. Work out your realistic annual hours first, multiply by the hourly burn on the model page, and put that number next to the monthly payment.
We put this in front of you rather than behind a lead form for a straightforward reason. Buyers who understand total cost of ownership before they sign do not default, do not sell in a hurry at a loss, and come back to us for the next boat. Underestimating running costs is the most common way a good boat becomes a bad experience.
Ownership cost, marine survey, insurance and the questions that decide whether a used boat is a bargain or a project.
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A large share of the best value on the water is sold owner-to-owner, and most lenders will not touch those deals. We write them every week.
We run the title and lien search, confirm the seller owns the boat free and clear, and pay them directly through the closing rather than leaving you to hand over a cashier’s cheque in a marina car park. Older and high-hour vessels are considered on survey condition and documentation rather than on model year, which is where most bank applications stop.
Prequalification takes about four minutes on a soft credit pull and gives you a rate, a term and a ceiling. Buyers who arrive already financed close faster and pay less for the same boat.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and the boat you are looking to finance.
