>>1171782>>1171799How good a boat is is largely dependent on what you plan to use it for, although as a general rule unless you're doing tournament fishing or some other type of meme sport stay the fuck away from bass boats, they're shit in anything other than a flat calm lake, they've got stupidly low bows and no freeboard which are great if you want to blast around a little puddle but suck when you take them into any real chop, the decks are also a pain in the ass since they're heavy and have a high CG so it takes forever to work on something and it makes the boat less stable
I personally have a 15ft Semi-V skiff that I built and I've come to prefer that hull style over pretty much everything else, it's like a V bow up front, but it smooths out to mostly flat in back. Compared to a bassboat its way more seaworthy, I've gone out to the islands at the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel and came home through 6ft chop without taking water over the bow, a bassboat would’ve swamped and turtled.
With engines if you can find a 2-stroke in good condition I'd recommend you go with that since they're way simpler than 4-strokes, learn to strip and clean the carb on the fly any you'll pretty much be able to fix any issues that crop up with it, if you can you should try to spring for a Yamaha as I find their designs are generally easier to work on since they don't do retarded things like making the lower unit only removable with a spanner or having to open the crankcase to get to the reed valves.
Good luck and don't spend too much.
