Family four alternative.

[grounded]

Hi to all.

Looking around at newish Shetland family four and not finding many on the market.

Is there a similar alternative make of boat I could be looking at.

Appreciate you comments and suggestions.

[535Mustard]

Sealine 195 or a Hardy 18 are both good boats.

[Adam]

Everything depends on your budget.
There are some nice similar size boats you could choose from. Does it have to be locally? You could try France, Holland or Germany but now with this coshit-19 we are not able to do much

[dellquay13]

The F4 is a boat from a bygone era, most modern boats in the 5.5m range are either ski boats or pilothouse fishers dominated by the French brands and the eastern European copies. The F4 is all about the size of the cabin and cockpit, there is no wasted space, every inch is put to the best use, and it is designed as accommodation, not a sports platform, but with a big enough engine it can still see you safely over the horizon on the right day, and on the wrong day you can hunker down from the rain under the pram hood. A little version of a big boat with a surprising turn of speed, a great little boat for British waters.

[dellquay13]

And small enough to be towed behind the average family car from 1977...

[535Mustard]

I'm not sure that Covid 19 is a problem anymore with getting things from abroad.
A guy I know has just driven to Germany to buy a motorhome, stayed 2 days and just driven back, he says no extra checks and passport only checked once.
Nobody asked where he was going or what he was up to at at any time!

[grounded]

Pricewise I have a budget of 10 - 20k, but would go higher for the right boat.

Prefer outboard at the moment.

Not sure about the high servicing costs and reliability of outdrive and engines in my price range.

Thanks for your replies.

[535Mustard]

Talking of sterndrives. If you can find one, my dad has a mercuiser 120hp deisel in his 7m RIB.
Poole to Cherbourg and back is just over half a tank.
Poole around the isle of wight and back is about £25 worth of fuel.
It's not the fastest but about the same speed as my 535 and a great engine for going places.

[grounded]

Perhaps I should widen my search to include outdrives.

I've ( perhaps wrongly ) worried about service cost and repairs on big engines.

Time to do more research maybe.

Thanks again for your reply.

[dellquay13]

There are very few 5.5m boats with cabins that can handle the weight of an inboard and outdrive, you might need a bigger boat...