Boat Gear: Everything We'd Put on a Coastal Boat

There is one principle that matters more than any brand choice when you outfit a boat: safety gear is not optional, and everything else is. Experienced owners and editors repeat the same hierarchy, legal compliance first, then the gear that prevents an emergency, then the gear that gets you home, then the gear that makes a long day comfortable. The owner who spends three thousand dollars on a chartplotter before buying a proper anchor and rode is the owner who ends up dragging toward a dock they cannot protect. The second principle is just as universal: size matters everywhere. The gear that works on a 22 ft boat is often wrong on a 38 ft boat, and nearly every decision here, anchor weight, rode diameter, fender size, bilge pump capacity, fire extinguisher class, scales with the boat.

So the sequence we use, and the order the sections below follow, is the order owners on The Hull Truth, Cruisers Forum, and the BoatUS community converge on. First the safety gear the Coast Guard requires before the boat leaves the dock. Then the above-legal safety upgrades, an EPIRB or PLB and gear for a person in the water. Then ground tackle, because if you anchor at all you should do it right from the first night. Then communications, a fixed VHF before anything else. Then navigation. Then the power and electrical stack. Then docking and plumbing. Then maintenance and spares. Comfort gear comes last, after the boat is safe and self-sufficient.

The most common and most expensive mistake is inverting that order, spending on electronics before the anchoring, docking, and dewatering basics, and finding the gap at the worst possible time. A bigger screen does not hold the boat in a blow, and it does not pump out the bilge. So we have ordered this guide the way we would spend the money: the cheap, unglamorous, life-saving gear first, and the screens later.

Each section below explains the one decision that matters most in that system, names the most common mistake, gives a rough budget, and links the single guide we trust for that category, where you will find the actual model to buy. Read it top to bottom the first time to get the whole picture, then come back to the section you are shopping. Everything here is written for a 20 to 45 ft coastal cruiser or fishing boat in US waters, the boat that does day trips and the occasional coastal overnight, not a bluewater liveaboard.

The best place to start is the gear you are legally required to carry, for two reasons: it is the law, and it is also the gear most likely to save your life. The US Coast Guard sets a federal minimum that scales with boat length, and a 20 to 45 ft coastal boat sits in the middle of that scale. The table below is the federal floor; your state can require more, so check with your state boating authority, and treat the minimum as a floor, not a target.

Two recent changes catch owners out. Since April 20, 2022, disposable (non-rechargeable) fire extinguishers carry a twelve-year service life from the date stamped on the bottle, and boats with a model year of 2018 or newer must carry the newer 5-B, 10-B, or 20-B labeled extinguishers rather than the old B-I and B-II; a 10-B counts the same as a 5-B wherever the table lists one. And since April 2021, the operator of a boat under 26 ft with an engine capable of 115 pounds of static thrust, roughly 3 horsepower, must use the engine cut-off switch link when the boat is on plane or above displacement speed, unless the primary helm sits inside an enclosed cabin. That use rule bites once the boat has a switch installed, which has been required on new boats built since January 2020. One thing the Coast Guard does not require: AIS. It is not mandatory on any recreational boat, but as the navigation section explains, owners near commercial traffic should still have it.

Disposable (non-rechargeable) fire extinguishers must be removed from service twelve years after the manufacture date stamped on the bottle, and checked yearly: gauge in the green, pin in place, nozzle clear, no corrosion. Rechargeable units have no fixed expiry but need regular professional service. A 10-B is interchangeable with a 5-B, and one 20-B replaces two 5-B units. Pyrotechnic flares carry a 42-month service life and expire on the date stamped on the casing, which is the single most common reason a boat fails a Vessel Safety Check, so keep them in date. Federal law requires children under 13 to wear a PFD underway unless they are below deck or in an enclosed cabin; where a state sets its own child-PFD rule, that rule governs. State rules can exceed these federal minimums, so confirm with your state boating authority, and book a free Vessel Safety Check from the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Safety is the first money you spend and the one place not to chase the lowest price, because the gear only works if it is good enough to use and close enough to reach. The legally required PFDs are the floor, but the upgrade that matters is from cheap foam life jackets stuffed in a locker to quality inflatable ones the crew will actually wear. The saying on the docks is blunt: the most expensive life jacket you will ever own is the one you did not have on. For the throwable, a horseshoe buoy beats the foam cushion that just meets the legal minimum, because in a real man-overboard you need something you can throw and grab at a distance.

Above the legal kit, the single most important safety purchase for any coastal boat is a 406 MHz EPIRB, the beacon that calls the Coast Guard by satellite from anywhere, keeps transmitting for at least 48 hours, is registered to the boat, and on a Category I unit releases and floats on its own if the boat goes down. A personal locator beacon is the smaller, person-worn cousin, and a satellite communicator adds two-way messaging and, critically, confirmation that your distress call was heard. The common mistake here is buying a PLB instead of an EPIRB for the boat: a PLB transmits for only a day, performs best held with its antenna skyward, and is not built to deploy and float on its own from a sinking hull the way a Category I EPIRB is.

Round out the safety kit with three things owners forget: a waterproof first aid kit, a carbon monoxide detector on any boat with a gasoline engine or an enclosed cabin (CO is a leading cause of boating deaths), and the free habit that saves the most search time, filing a float plan with someone ashore before every trip.

Budget runs from about $150 to $350 for the bare legal minimum, $800 to $2,000 for a sensible coastal kit with inflatable PFDs and an EPIRB, and well past $3,000 once you add a Category I auto-release EPIRB, crew PLBs, a satellite communicator, and a proper man-overboard kit. The guides below cover the two pieces you choose: the life jackets you will actually wear, and the beacon that brings help.

If something goes wrong, the radio is how you get help, and for a coastal boat the primary radio is a fixed-mount VHF with DSC, not a handheld and not a cell phone. The fixed set transmits at 25 watts into a tall antenna, which is why it reaches well beyond a handheld, realistically 20 to 40 miles to a Coast Guard station from a small-boat antenna and farther from a masthead, while a handheld at a few watts and chest height is good for only a few miles. DSC, digital selective calling, lets you send a one-button distress call with your GPS position attached, but only if you have a registered MMSI number that is also programmed into the radio, which is the step owners most often skip or botch; an unprogrammed or unregistered MMSI sends a distress call that reaches rescuers tied to nothing. The MMSI is free from BoatUS or the US Power Squadrons and is the most valuable five minutes of setup on the whole boat.

A handheld VHF is the backup, not the primary: it keeps working when the boat loses power, and it lives in the ditch bag and the dinghy. For coastal overnights and anywhere beyond VHF range, a satellite communicator adds two-way messaging and a confirmed SOS. The mistake we see most is treating a cell phone as the safety radio; coverage dies a few miles out, and a phone cannot send a DSC Mayday to the Coast Guard. The second mistake is buying only a handheld and skipping the fixed set.

Budget: a fixed VHF with DSC is $120 to $300, a handheld $100 to $250, and a satellite communicator $350 to $500 plus a monthly plan. The three guides below cover the helm radio, the floating backup, and the satellite messenger.

Navigation splits into two jobs: knowing where you are, and being seen by the traffic around you. For the first, a chartplotter or multifunction display with current electronic charts is the coastal standard, a 9 to 12 inch screen from Garmin, Raymarine, Simrad, or Humminbird with the chart card for your waters. But the one piece no screen replaces is a dedicated magnetic compass at the helm, because electronics fail and a compass does not, and every experienced owner is emphatic about keeping one.

For the second job, being seen, the answer is a Class B AIS transponder. It is not legally required on a recreational boat, but near commercial traffic, shipping lanes, and ferry routes it is close to essential, because it puts your boat on the screen of every ship around you. A receive-only AIS shows you the traffic but does not make you visible, which is the trap: owners buy the receiver and assume the tanker can see them. It cannot, unless you transmit. Radar is the next step up and becomes a must-have for night running and fog, but for a coastal day boat it comes after the plotter and the transponder.

Budget: an entry chartplotter is $250 to $400, a mid-size MFD $800 to $1,800, a Class B AIS transponder $300 to $600, and a magnetic compass $80 to $250. The two guides below cover the plotter and the AIS that makes you visible.

Ground tackle is the system that holds you off a lee shore when the engine quits or the wind comes up, and it is the one owners most often undersize. The modern answer for a primary anchor is a new-generation design, a Rocna, Mantus, or Manson Supreme, which set faster and reset more reliably in mud, mixed bottoms, and through wind and tide shifts than the old plow and claw shapes. The honest nuance: a Danforth-style fluke still holds as well or better in firm sand, and nothing sets reliably in thick turtle grass, so match the anchor to your bottom and carry a second type if you anchor in both. Size up, not down: the manufacturer chart is a starting point, and the boat will be happier a size above it. Pair it with the right rode, at minimum one boat length of chain between the anchor and the nylon, and on serious coastal boats an all-chain rode with a nylon snubber to absorb the shock load.

On a boat around 35 ft and up with a heavy chain rode, an electric windlass moves from luxury to near-necessity, and owners who add one say they would never go back; plenty of owners still hand-haul the tackle on a 28 ft boat without trouble. The mistake that costs the most is undersizing the anchor and rode, the 20 lb fluke on a 35 ft boat that drags, or the all-nylon rode with a few feet of chain that jerks in the surge and lifts the anchor's shank to a bad angle. Get the size and the chain right and almost any quality anchor holds; get them wrong and the best anchor on the market drags.

Budget: a new-generation anchor is $250 to $650, a rode package $150 to $550, and a windlass $500 to $2,000 installed. The three guides below cover the anchor, the chain and rode, and the windlass.

Docking gear protects the boat from its own weight against a hard dock, and it is cheap insurance that owners skimp on until the first gelcoat gouge. The two essentials are fenders and dock lines, both sized to the boat and both in greater number than beginners expect. The rule is at least three fenders per side on a boat under 40 ft, sized by length, and the running joke is that you never have enough until you have already scratched the hull. Hang them low, at the point of maximum beam, where the boat actually touches.

Dock lines are the other half: a properly outfitted boat carries at least six, two bow, two stern, and two spring lines as long as the boat, in nylon for its stretch. The most common mistakes are undersized fenders, a fender built for a 22 ft boat doing nothing for a 36 ft boat, and dock lines that are too short, which concentrate the load and make tying up in surge or tidal range a fight. A boat hook rounds out the kit for picking up mooring balls and fending off without using a hand or a foot.

Budget: a set of fenders runs $120 to $280, a six-line dock-line set $200 to $400, and a boat hook $40 to $100. The guide below covers fenders, sized to your boat, and the size mistake that ends in a damaged hull.

The power system is a stack, and it works as a loop: a house battery bank separate from the engine start battery, a charger to fill it from shore power, and a monitor so you actually know the state of charge instead of guessing. AGM batteries are the coastal standard, sealed and forgiving; lithium, LiFePO4, is the premium upgrade, lighter and deeper-cycling but several times the price and needing a compatible charger. For a coastal boat spending a night or two at anchor, 200 to 400 amp-hours of AGM or 100 to 200 of lithium is typical. The wiring matters as much as the batteries: marine-grade tinned wire, fused at every source, is non-negotiable, and non-marine cords are the top fire hazard surveyors flag.

For boats that anchor often, solar panels with an MPPT charge controller are the most cost-effective way to stay charged without running the engine, and a pure sine inverter runs the AC gear you care about. The most common mistake is using the engine start battery as the house bank, which kills the start battery and leaves you with a dead engine, and the second is buying cheap non-marine 12V accessories that corrode out in a season. The single most useful instrument here is the battery monitor: without it you are either running the bank flat or chronically undercharging it.

Budget runs widely: an AGM house bank $400 to $700, lithium $600 to $2,500, a charger $100 to $350, a monitor $70 to $150, a 200W solar panel and MPPT controller $280 to $600, and an inverter $150 to $1,500. The six guides below cover the full house-bank stack, battery, charger, solar panel, charge controller, inverter, and monitor, in the order you would build it.

The plumbing system that matters most is the one that keeps water out: the bilge pump, the through-hulls, and a manual backup for when the power is gone. An automatic electric bilge pump with a float switch is the baseline, and the detail owners get wrong is the wiring: the pump should run straight off the battery, not through the main switch, so it works when the boat is unattended at the dock, which is exactly when a failed hose floods it. Size the pump to the boat, and remember that the rated gallons-per-hour is measured at zero lift; the real output at your installation height is roughly half the number on the box.

A manual backup pump is the last line of defense when the electrical system fails or a flood overwhelms the electric pump, and a soft wooden plug tied to each through-hull is the cheapest sinking-prevention on the boat. The most common mistake, again, is wiring the auto pump through the battery switch, and the second is never testing it; pull the float switch before every trip. The Coast Guard does not mandate an electric bilge pump, only a dewatering device, but any boat over 16 ft that sits in the water needs an automatic pump and a manual backup.

Budget: a quality automatic pump is $40 to $250 depending on capacity, a manual backup $40 to $150, and seacock ball valves $60 to $180 each if you are upgrading from gate valves. The guide below covers the automatic bilge pump and the GPH-rating reality.

Maintenance is the gear that keeps the boat working between trips, and the principle that runs through it is to use the right product for the job rather than the strongest one. That is most obvious with sealants: 3M 5200 is a permanent structural adhesive that is nearly impossible to remove and should never go on a fitting you may need to service, while 3M 4200 or a Sikaflex is the removable choice for deck hardware and hatches (3M 4000 UV is a topside-only product, not for below the waterline). The single most effective maintenance habit costs nothing but water: a freshwater rinse after every saltwater outing does more for the boat than any product.

A basic tool kit and an engine spares kit, a spare impeller above all, since a failed water-pump impeller can cook an engine in minutes, plus belts, filters, and fuses, belong aboard before the first long day. For cleaning, a dedicated boat wash and a quality wax protect the gelcoat, and the mistake that costs the most is reaching for household bleach cleaners on the marine head, which destroy the seals and valves within a season. WD-40 is a water displacer, not a corrosion protectant; use a marine product like CRC 6-56 or Boeshield T-9 for that job.

Budget: a tool kit $80 to $200, an engine spares kit $80 to $200, a sealant assortment $60 to $120, and a season of cleaners and wax $80 to $200. The two guides below cover marine sealants, matched to the job, and boat cleaners that protect the finish instead of stripping it.

We do not run a lab and we do not claim to crush-test anchors or sink boats. What we do is read the owner-level signal on The Hull Truth, Cruisers Forum, r/boating, and the BoatUS community, alongside the field tests at Practical Sailor and Boating Magazine and the buying guidance from the US Coast Guard, BoatUS, West Marine, and Defender, and then synthesize it into a single pick per category and an honest list of what to skip. Every legal requirement on this page is traced to the federal rules, current to 2026, and every product guide it links is built the same way, recommend-not-validate, with the boundaries and the failure modes stated plainly.

Some links here go to Amazon, and if you buy through them we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change the picks; we name the things to skip on every guide, which is not what you do when the goal is to sell the most expensive item. The picks are the ones we would put on our own 20 to 45 ft coastal boat.