The last couple of days I went out for a guy's trip across Lake Michigan.
It's a requirement to swim in the center at least once.
The last couple of days I went out for a guy's trip across Lake Michigan.
It's a requirement to swim in the center at least once.
Hard to believe this is a freshwater lake some days
In reply to Sonic :
Great work. I'm going to have to do a fair bit of cosmetic repairs on my boat in the near future. I expect it to be awful, and may just pay somebody to do it.
Here's a picture from today showing the finished interior and you can clearly see the platform I made from 1" marine ply to make a lounge area in the bow. Would us Isiteek again.
I fixed the bow roller on the winch and mounted a new rod holder. The boat was missing this side when I got it a few years ago and I finally got tired of looking at it.
Ignore the filth. 
Next up: fix that cracked gunwale.
In reply to Grtechguy :
That reminds me of a time doing a sailboat delivery to the USVI, we were becalmed in the Puerto Rican trench, we stopped the motor and went for a swim when we were a few hundred miles from any land and the water under us was five miles deep.
I've been rebuilding this flivver for fun quick runs...structurally done, needs fairing and paint. Found a motor for it, should be enough.
In reply to MattGent :
Fourty horses on that little thing? Well done, ya mad lad, ya.
MattGent said:I've been rebuilding this flivver for fun quick runs...structurally done, needs fairing and paint. Found a motor for it, should be enough.
Now this is right up my alley!
Can I see video of it on the water ?
No good video yet. It's a total handful! Launches at about 60deg. Prop that came with the motor is way too small, but it leaves hard.
Sonic said:Here's a picture from today showing the finished interior and you can clearly see the platform I made from 1" marine ply to make a lounge area in the bow. Would us Isiteek again.
I may need to get some of that LSITeak for the cockpit of my sailboat. That stuff looks good!
MattGent said:
No good video yet. It's a total handful! Launches at about 60deg. Prop that came with the motor is way too small, but it leaves hard.
I love this forum because no matter what marginally dangerous motorized amusement I get up to there's always someone taking it 2 steps further.
That boat looks hectic, time to find a prop off a thundercraft.
Thundercat? Yeah. I need an 18" pitch, should run close to 50. Biggest normal prop I can find in US is a 17. Maybe ok with some cupping, these motors like to run but the cranks come apart if you rev too high.
And I definitely will end up in the drink at some point. Of all the stupid E36 M3 I've done, this one is the sketchiest.
Rebuild thread here https://www.microskiff.com/threads/nanoskiff-flivver-rebuild.95077/#post-976437
MattGent said:Thundercat? Yeah. I need an 18" pitch, should run close to 50. Biggest normal prop I can find in US is a 17. Maybe ok with some cupping, these motors like to run but the cranks come apart if you rev too high.
And I definitely will end up in the drink at some point. Of all the stupid E36 M3 I've done, this one is the sketchiest.
Rebuild thread here https://www.microskiff.com/threads/nanoskiff-flivver-rebuild.95077/#post-976437
I know the guys running those motors in d stock hydroplane racing have to work and weld the cranks. Look up Dewald props. He's in the USA builds a lot of props for hydroplanes and runabouts.
We went for a float father's day. I had a little fun by putting headers on the canoe my (adult) children were paddling:
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) :
My Wife can no longer climb into the big cruiser. The pontoon is still something she can step off the dock onto so maybe it's time to let the old reliable family friend find a new home?
It's a 1979 Sea Ray 260 Sun Dancer. Beautiful teak wood throughout and sleeps 6. Bathroom with 40 gallon stainless steel holding tank. Galley with 3 burner stove (never used) , sink, ice box. 105 gallon fuel tank (1/2+ full). 60 gallons of fresh water. Swim platform. Trim plates.
310 hp 350 Chevy with maybe 5000 miles (125 hrs ) on it.Fresh water only. Tandem axle V bunk trailer.
Now the bad news. Carpets could use replacement. Some upholstery replacement. Gimble bearing is making noise, some light bulbs don't work.
It's far from trashed but it needs time spent updating and refreshing.
Is $5000 too much ?
It's been 4 years since we sold our last boat, a 34' Sea Ray Express.
I can't say I miss it.
But, the reason for the post, while visiting my 87yo father this morning, he asked that I bring some of his oldest National Geographic magazines up from the basement.
I picked out half a dozen from 1931 and 1932.
The first page he opened to was an ad for a double cockpit Chris Craft.
Starting at $4995.00
About $100K in today's money, so right in line, I'd say.
In reply to SaltyDog :
Thank you.
In reply to Sonic :
I love Boston Whalers. The only ones that I could ever afford were trashed, but I still had fun with them. The last one was a 1962 Nauset 16 footer that had so much water soaked into the foam that it would seep though the hull and drip onto the driveway when the weather was hot.
I caught my first and only wahoo in that boat, 20 miles off the Florida keys.
frenchyd said:Is $5000 too much ?
It'll be gone in a week at that price, provided it won't sink when it's put on the water. Prices are NUTS right now.
I don't know if anyone is interested in this boat I mentioned a few pages back and a couple months ago or not. But I'm excited about what I've been doing with it so I figured I'd post up some of my progress.
I got this 16' Fisher Marine aluminum fishing boat back in May. Here it is literally on the seller's lawn:
As I mentioned earlier, I got it mainly for nostalgia...it's similar to the first boat I got to pilot and learned to ski behind in my youth. I want to put it together to cruise around on the Missouri River for fun. This size should fit well with where I put in (on a small tributary) and should be fairly rugged and resilient for when conditions aren't optimal.
I didn't want to spend any more money on it until I could get the title all sorted out. So I started by just stripping all the deteriorated interior and transom out of the boat.
This white flotation foam under the floor was HEAVY with water. It was also a structural part of the floor. The aluminum on top of it was very thin, making the foam a load-bearing part of it. Interesting. Not bad, but not feasible to replicate when I put it back together.
I counted on the transom being deteriorated and in need of replacement. I wasn't wrong. It was better than I expected, but not good enough to stay.
I got it down to completely gutted:
At some point, I got good news that a Title would be issued, so it was Green Flag to spend a little money on this disaster. I built a transom (plywood laminated with and encapsulated in epoxy). In this photo it's still in process. There's $100 or so:
Then it was off to my friends Wayne and Brandon at the local Radiator Shop (how cool that we still have one of those here) to patch up a couple of large holes (left over from two live wells) and a few small holes in the transom that were no longer needed (I mean...they were never necessary but people seem to enjoy perforating their boats for goofy accessories)
Once the obvious holes were patched up I put a few inches of water INSIDE the hull to find any leaky rivets in need of re-smashing.
There were 5 or 6 total that dripped a bit of water and were re-bucked with the help of my wife.
I had been developing a plan for how I wanted the boat to be laid out.
I decided that I wanted the finish of this boat to be very rugged. And by that I mean that I don't want to be uptight about tearing it up. Kids, dogs, flying carp...it should be able to handle it all without me wincing about possible damage. I want to be able to hose it out after a day of boating on the Big Muddy and I want it to be able to be stored outdoors. I'll cover it in the off season, but it will be an outside boat. None of this pansy indoor boat business (because I already have those boats filling up the inside storage area)
I had a bunch of old, reclaimed aluminum that I decided to use here. Some 1 1/2" square tube and some scraps of sheet. Here's the layout I decided on. The rear "deck" will serve as a seating area (would be fine for fishing, if you're into that sort of thing) and underneath will be the fuel tanks and batteries. The front deck will be another seating area and will have storage underneath.
I had been working on that layout with free (scrap) materials before I started spending money. So now that it's back from the welder, it's time to start fitting the boat for decks, floors, console, etc.
Next I spent money on rivets and finalized the front deck framing. All it needs now is the deck/hatch which will be epoxied plywood.
And here we also see the flooring that I installed in the main cockpit area. First I put down pink 1 1/2" foam board (flotation). Then, I cut and riveted down a piece of 1/2" PVC board that I found at Home Depot. Given this boat's purpose and the fact that the floor isn't flat (it's very slightly v-shaped) I thought it would be a good experiment to try this plastic floor board. It has a wood grain texture on one side that I hope will provide enough slip resistance while still being easy to hose and/or scrub off to clean it. Like I said, it's an experiment and it may or may not be a successful one. Time will tell.
That brings us up to where I'm at now. I'm starting to work on the back deck/hatch area and I need to work on getting the helm and pilot seat set up and installed. Starting to mock stuff up here
I don't imagine this boat needs its own thread on an automotive sportscar forum (though, I LOVE the boat threads we have here)...so I just put a long post in this thread ;). I'm having fun building it and thought others might like. It's sort of an oddball build. But it's being built by and for a sort-of oddball character.
Weeeeeeee!
I've been able to make some progress on my boat project:
In reply to ClemSparks :
That's looking fantastic.
1SlowVW said:In reply to ClemSparks :
That's looking fantastic.
Indeed it is.
I was concerned about the UV resistance of the plastic floor, obviously you addressed that with a layer of some sort of finish. Is it paint?
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