I have four sons and in 1995 we bought a bigger boat a used 18 1/2 ft Sylvan with a 115hp. We borrowed some of the money to pay for it and I can not count the hundreds or maybe even thousand hours we have spent in it.

I still have the boat and have done regular maintenance on it, with the exception of replacing some steering linkage it has been a great boat, no leaks and still looks pretty good for a boat that is almost 30 years old. We had many family trips and I fished the walleye trails for about 25 years so I was in all kinds of weather with it.

The boats were much more reasonable then and it has been paid for, for many years. It was a great family investment and I have never regretted our investment. Sometimes people buy a boat, it gets lots of use at first and then it can sit, we used ours a lot and have made so many great memories over the years...........those are priceless.