A few years ago, just as a reason to hang out with my friend Dan, who i hadn't seen in years, I agreed to go fishing. I've always enjoyed the outdoors, so why the hell not, right? Drink a few beers. Might even be fun to catch a fish. Didn't take long till i was (pun incoming.. sorry, but get used to it) hooked! Ok, so now you're thinking.. "I thought I was reading a blog about flipping boats", right? FINE I'm getting to it. Anyways, I bought an old 12' aluminum Crestliner dinghy from my friends dad for 100$ (I think i was doing him a favor by getting it off his lawn) and a 24 lb thrust minn-kota electric motor from a different friends dad for 50$. Soon i was fishing just about every weekend in the summer. Sometimes even after work.
Well, the appeal of catching yet another 1/2 pound rainbow trout in the nearby lakes started to wear off and I began thinking of the fishing that could be done on the Puget Sound (I live in Everett, WA - about a 30min drive from Seattle). It was then that I was confronted with some challenges. Sure, you can take a 12' aluminum boat on the sound. But being that i was a fairly inexperienced boater at the time I didn't want to take the risk of, umm, drowning. I needed a bigger boat! I started scanning the boat section of craigslist.org for potential boats that would get me on the saltwater, Salmon fishing. It seemed finding a decent working boat was outside my financial means, 'cause almost everything is out of my financial means, so I had no choice but to buy a decent not-working boat. Again, I was reduced to being a junk hauling service, but hey it worked out well last time with the 12' Crestliner. So why not again?
[current boat rehab victim above, 16' 1968 Starcraft]
For a couple months now I have been the proud owner of a 1968 Starcraft 16' aluminum boat. For 500$ I got the boat, a 1968 Johnson 65HP outboard, a 7.5 Gamefisher kicker motor, and the trailer. The main outboard motor apparently needed a replacement water pump, which after replacing, I found out it really needed a new bearing on the drive-shaft. The trailer is working, but rusty (I really need to get a replacement spare tire.. hopefully i will get around to that before regretting my procrastination on getting it). The kicker just needed a starter (pull cord style). After a bit of work on the motor and some pressure washing, I have a sort-of decent boat, which after parts, only cost me about 700$. I have had quite a bit of fun working on it and a few fishing/crabbing trips, so i feel like i got my moneys worth already. The thought now occurs.. I bet if I put some more effort into making this boat really nice I could sell it for more than what i paid for it plus parts and materials. If not, well, at least i'll have a really cool boat. In my day job I work in the apartment industry and we (*by "we" i mean the people that pay me) make lot's of money by adding perceived value to apartments all the time. People flip houses and make money all the time by adding new fixtures/flooring ect. Why not boats? Then with the profits I could could upgrade to bigger and better boats. The only foreseeable problem i can think of is that I have a light 2-wheel drive truck that just barely tows the 16 footer safely. I'll deal with that later.
[1968 Johnson 65hp - just put the lower unit back together]
I have the basics down.. the motor runs, the boat doesn't sink when launched (unfortunately that got that part done before i decided to start this blog). It's functional. Now it's time to fix everything else. From what i have assessed so far, it needs a new windshield, new flooring, new instruments(pretty much the only thing that works is the ignition switch and a cheap ass toggle switch I installed to turn the bow/stern lights on), repainting, re-doing the seats, re-doing the bimini top, and re-doing the dashboard and interior siding. Since i'm kinda poor, i will be doing the "elbow grease" and "DIY" methods. I plan to blog each project. Those of you who are experienced can laugh at my misguided attempts.. those of you "in the same boat" as it were, can learn from my retarded mistakes. In any case, I will definitely be drinking beer, listening to Beck, The Racontours or Wolfmother (I do listen to other music as well - my wife Mad would argue that point though!) on my ipod and having fun the most time. Except when i'm hurting myself, or breaking expensive parts on accident.
