Power Boats
Buy and sell power boats in Panama.
On Panama’s Pacific side a power boat is sized by how far it has to go: the bay and the islands near the city on one outboard, or the long run past Coiba to the offshore banks on two. New or pre-owned, they run from bowriders built for a family Sunday to center consoles rigged for tuna and express cruisers with a cabin below and inboards under the deck. Plenty of used ones have been repowered along the way, so the hull and the engine carry different ages and are worth pricing one at a time.
Day boats on an outboard, cabin boats on inboards:
that is the broad split, and among the day boats it comes down to who is aboard. A bowrider seats the family forward of the windscreen and is built for calm water, swimming stops and towing a tube. Center consoles and walkarounds are fishing boats: the first is open all round so you can follow a fish from bow to stern, the second trades some deck for a small cuddy with a berth and a toilet. Express cruisers and flybridge boats carry a proper cabin with a galley below and run on twin inboards, gasoline V8s or diesels. The tender that follows a bigger boat is under dinghies, and boats that go by wind are under sailboats.
Hannibal Bank, Isla Montuosa and the case for two engines:
the fishing that draws people to Panama’s Pacific side is a long way out. The banks beyond Coiba sit well over an hour’s run from the nearest coast, and the boats that work them carry large tanks and usually a pair of outboards, so one can bring the boat home if the other quits. For the bay and the islands close to the city, a single engine on a smaller hull costs far less to feed and to service. Before falling for a boat, read the capacity plate and compare its maximum horsepower with what is hanging on the transom: repowered boats sometimes carry more than the hull was built for. Engines sold on their own are under outboard engines.
Repowered hulls and the price of the engine on the transom:
a fibreglass boat of around twenty feet with a single outboard and ten or more years on the hull is asked at roughly $16,000 to $30,000 in Panama, and the engine explains most of that spread. An old hull carrying a recent high-horsepower four-stroke with few hours sits at the top; the same hull on a pair of tired two-strokes sits at the bottom, because the buyer is already pricing in a new engine. Cabin boats are another scale altogether: an express cruiser of around thirty-five feet on twin inboards, twenty-odd years old, is asked at more than $150,000.
Fuel tanks, soft decks and a run at full throttle:
many center consoles and walkarounds have an aluminium fuel tank foamed in under the deck, where corrosion works unseen. Replacing one means cutting the deck open, so ask whether it has been done, open the inspection hatch and smell the bilge for fuel. Walk the whole deck and press with your heel around rod holders, cleats and anything screwed down: a spongy patch means water has got into the core. Then insist on a sea trial with a few minutes at wide-open throttle. Every engine maker publishes a full-throttle rpm range for its outboards; if the tachometer falls short, the propeller is wrong, the bottom is foul or the engine is tired, and a seller who will not let you try has answered the question for you. Low hours on an old boat are not automatically good news: an engine started once a week on the trailer and never run under load has still sat for months in the heat.
Hull year, engine hours and dealer service records in the listing:
give the year of the hull and of each engine separately, with hours per engine and whether a trailer goes with it. Say where the boat is kept, ashore under a roof, on a mooring or in a marina slip, since that tells a buyer more about the bottom and the gelcoat than any photo. Service records from the authorised dealer’s workshop are what make the hours believable, and the papers should match the hull identification number and the engine serials. Someone planning trips out to the banks will want more than a lap of the bay. Leave fuel in the tanks and time to run at cruise until the engines are hot, then let them lift the cowlings and look.