New to this forum - Has any on this board ever bought a boat with a friend. I have a good friend who wants to go in together on a small 16 ft. fishing boat. Both of us can afford the boat separately - it's less than $4000 . Can of worms? Anyone here had any experience doing this? Pros & cons please.

I've done this a couple of times. I purchased my first boat with a business partner. We actually ran payments and costs through our company. The boat had quite a few problems though - had to move everyone to the front to get her to plane 🙂 But, we kept it for about a year before trading it in on anther boat which we also shared. We kept in close communication about issues that inevitably came up and shared costs evenly - which I would highly recommend. Any new items/costs had to be agreed on prior to purchase and everyone shared equally. If you have a good relationship with your potential partners, I would encourage you to continue your exploration. Good Luck.

Like most things, if you give it some though on the front end and work at it, it's a nice way to get access to a boat. I have had a number of partnerships over the years and really haven't had any issues. Think through how you're going to handle maintenance, fluel insurance, purchasing new items for the boat, fixing old or broken stuff, etc. Is it better to own a boat solo? Could be, but when you're paying 1/2 as much for new equipment, it starts to look a lot better. Like a marriage, it really depends on the people involved and what their expectations are. To dismiss the possibility out of hand and say, don't do it, it will never work because it didn't work for me or I knew someone who it didn't work for is foolish. Plan carefully and take it slow and it can be a great experience.