Compare the value of an aluminum fishing boat to a fiberglass fishing boat in 10 years


There’s many choices when it comes to buying a fishing boat. Generally it comes down to an aluminum boat, a fiberglass boat or a timber one. Today we wanted to look at a comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of aluminum versus fiberglass.

There’s no doubt that a fiberglass boat looks great. Because fiberglass boats are built in a mold they can be rounded and shaped to look fantastic, and the gelcoat coloring looks sleek and inviting.

And of course whilst it’s quite possible to paint and aluminum boat and make it look good it just doesn’t look as good as a fiberglass boat.

However there’s many other good reasons to choose aluminum over fiberglass.

A fiberglass boat looks great when its new, but it ages fast. Whilst aluminum is durable and long-lasting a gelcoat finished to a fiberglass boat gradually deteriorates until it goes dull.

Fishing Boat

Image by Velo Steve via Flickr

The color fades and it just doesn’t look like it did when it was new.

Gelcoat scratches. Every time you put your boat up on the beach you gather a whole new bunch of scratches underneath the boat.

Fiberglass is relatively easy to damage, and it is not uncommon for a fiberglass boat to have been holed by impact. Whilst it is perfectly possible to repair a fiberglass boat a repair may well not look so good 5 or 10 years later.

And aluminum boat however, if treated well, will look almost as good in 10 years as the day it was purchased. Aluminum won’t rust, it won’t fade or go dull and although it will scratch it takes much more to scratch aluminum than it does to scratch gelcoat.

And the bottom line is resale value. Go online and have a look at some second-hand boat dealerships and see if you can find the original price of the boat when it was new. Do that and you will find that fiberglass boats, whilst colourful and flashy when new, lose a whole lot more of their value as few years later when being sold second-hand. Continue reading “Should You Buy an Aluminum Fishing Boat or a Fiberglass One?” »

Written by - Aluminum Fishing Boats