When working on boats professionally my meter of choice is the Fluke 376. It has features many meters don't and can do inrush current to 1000A. Most clamp meters can't capture DC inrush and most of the ones that claim they can, like Extech, do it very unreliably. It will also capture min/max and average voltage which can be handy for tracking annoying voltage drops, spikes and checking the lowest battery voltage during starting. It is built like a tank, simply works and works simply. It costs about $400.00 though..=Doh'......

I also have many cheap meters from the likes of Sperry, UEI, Mastech and others. For just knowing a basic voltage reading and doing continuity tests get one of the cheap DVM's at Wal*Mart. While not very accurate beyond .1V who really cares if you're just trying for a rough idea. My UEI is about the best of the cheapies but they're still in the $80-100 range and it's not a clamp meter.

Here's a video of it capturing the lowest starting voltage when starting a diesel engine off a deep cycle house bank. The MIN/MAX/AVG is a nice feature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1o-AOnrSYc

And measuring in-rush starting current of a Yanmar 2GM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hX7NMiV_Gc