I think you're going to have to expand your search to looking all over the country, if you're seriously looking for a boat as boats in the Seattle area/PNW region are way overpriced. Either that or your budget might have to go up a bit or buy a boat that's more of a project, if you're going to buy locally. That's why I went back to Maryland to buy my boat, of which they were asking $28k for the boat, motor and trailer. I offered them $26.5k and they didn't even give me a counteroffer, they just accepted my offer right then and there. Comparatively, locally here in Seattle there was the exact same boat as mine... 2004 Grady White 228 Seafarer hardtop, 2004 Yamaha 225hp 4 stroke motor but it had an older galvanized trailer as opposed to mine which is a considerably newer aluminum I-beam trailer. Anyway, the boat that was sold locally had radar, a kicker motor and newer/nicer electronics, which I'd say probably cost around $5k or so total, and they sold it on the local Seattle Craigslist for $55k.
I couldn't believe their asking price for the local boat and I couldn't believe that I bought the same boat for less than half of that price. I've never run a kicker motor before and also have towing on my insurance policy, of which I hopefully never have to use it. So... even if I were to break down out at sea, I think I'd be just fine waiting for a tow to come pick me up and tow me back in, or I could call a neighbor and ask if they could do it. I'll likely never buy a kicker motor unless my style of fishing changes, I move elsewhere or start doing more fishing in a much more dangerous location or one with inclement weather. I also do about 95% of my fishing in front of my beach cabin on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound where it's relatively calm waters during the summer. I'm also more of a fair-weather fisherman so while I don't think I really need to buy radar for my boat, it's always nice to have when you really need it, and it does nothing but increase the value of the boat. There have probably been 3 times or so in my 36 years of fishing where the conditions were so bad and there was so much fog to where you really needed radar, and one of those times I was actually out in it. Luckily that was my uncle's old boat and he had radar on it but the other times I'd look out at the conditions/weather from the cabin, see the amount of fog and decide to go out later or pass at fishing altogether. So I'll probably buy that at some point but you can buy a cheap Garmin unit for around $1k or spend upwards of $7k-10k. I'm looking at the Garmin Fantom 18 that BOE Marine just had on sale a couple of weeks ago for just under $1,600 and then maybe get a Garmin 943xsv as well. Those I haven't really seen any deals on and are pretty much $1,399 across the board. But for $3k, it's not going to break the bank or anything and as stated above, it'll only increase the value of the boat. Also, if the other boat sold for $55k and I've got $30k into mine after the electronics upgrade then I'll still be way ahead of the game if for some reason I ever went to sell my boat.
Anyway, as stated above, I think you need to expand your search to the east coast and either have it shipped out here and then up to Alaska or do the drive yourself. That is, unless you find a steal of a deal out here, but like you said with the one boat in Westport, those are usually sold and gone to the next person very quickly. Sometimes they don't even last the day and sell within a few hours if the price is that good. And with you being in Alaska, I'm sure that the seller is going to do a first come, first served basis as opposed to dealing with someone out of state that might not follow through. Because of that, I typically prefer to buy from a dealer or company as opposed to a private party. Typically a dealer or company will make pretty reasonable accommodations like holding onto the boat with a pending offer or down payment, allowing you to have a surveyor come out and inspect the boat and so on. One of the reasons why I didn't go with the 232 Gulfstream is because of the 9'3" beam and several states you have to get a special permit when towing a boat/trailer of that size. I believe here in Washington state it's any trailer over 8'6" wide but it also makes it more difficult to get a larger/wider boat and trailer into a standard width garage door. I pay the neighbor up at our cabin $100 a month to put my boat in his shop/garage for the winter and there was maybe 2-3" of spare room on each side of the trailer fenders? I can't imagine any bigger/wider of a boat would fit in that size of a garage/garage door. If you're mooring the boat then it's obviously not as big of a deal but then still have to store the trailer somewhere. My buddy lived in Juneau for a couple of years and had a love/hate relationship with it. He loved the fishing and the outdoors and everything else like that but hated a lot of the businesses, like you mentioned, because they have a bit of a monopoly so you have to deal with jerks and so forth. And he said he felt trapped with the mountains making it so you couldn't leave, except for by a boat or airplane. There's a 1997 Grady White 268 Islander in Bellingham on Craigslist for $58k, I'm assuming you saw that one already?
Great Islander 268 SV2 hull from Grady White with twin 2013 Mercury 150 four strokes. Excellent ocean boat and very fuel efficient. Excellent fishing set up with rear steering station for the Yamaha...
seattle.craigslist.org
