No problem. I've never heard of anyone having an issue for personal use and towing under 20k lbs. I think where you start to have an issue or a gray area is when you're doing it for a profit and I think it's over like 23k or 26k lbs that you're hauling. Which you'd be well short of that at only 14k lbs. They do still make the 300 Marlin, which might make it a bit more of a popular or readily available model to choose from. East coast prices are generally quite a bit lower for what you get, though with Spring "hopefully" approaching in the distant future, I think the prices are only going to go up from there. So, I'd be looking right now into what you're going to buy for this Spring/Summer. What was the transport issue with the California boat? Southern California is only about 1,300 miles south of the Seattle area, and then maybe another 100 miles or so up to where you are? Of which a transport, or even yourself doing the drive should only take 2 days total to do something like that. In one of my boat purchases on the east coast where I did the roundtrip out there and back, there were two days where I put in 1,100-1,200 miles of driving each day. Not that I'd recommend anyone doing something like that, but with only about 1,400 miles of driving, you could easily do around 700 miles of driving each day. If going 700 miles and driving 70 mph, that's 10 hours, which if you left on day one at around 7-8 in the morning, you should be done around probably 7 at night. And that would include stops for fuel, food, bathroom breaks and so forth. Or You could even make a long weekend out of it by doing 3 days and driving fewer miles each day. In fact, looking on Boat Trader as we speak, there are 43 different 300 Marlin's as opposed to only 19 different 282 Sailfish for sale. Good luck with whatever you do decide on doing. I'd recommend going to your local Grady White dealer, of which there is one up in Vancouver BC, and then walk around on a 300 Marlin to see how you like it compared to the 282 Sailfish. I'd also recommend that with any boat you purchase, that you always have an accredited marine surveyor inspect the boat, motors and trailer for you to make sure you're getting them in the condition they're advertised to be in. Good luck and keep us up to date with what you decide on doing.
