In my explorations of Eugene’s alleys, I often stumble into old cars left to rot with the blackberries threatening to engulf them. But at the dead end of this little alley,I found something different. And it reminded my of how many have succumbed to old-boat fever, with many never recuperating. At least this one is fiberglass and not wood.
It reminds me of the guy down the alley, who shortly after retiring bought a vintage wood cabin cruiser, in bad shape, natch, and installed it in his alley driveway to begin its restoration. I used to hear him back there, with a a grinder or sander, hopefully not inhaling the toxic dust he was releasing.
After an ambitious start, he petered out some six months or so into it. By peering over the fence gate, I could see he had only gotten far enough to keep uncovering more and more rot. The boat sat for a couple of years, and then one day it was gone, shortly later to be replaced by a new camper-van.
Have you ever had boatitis? Did you recuperate?
Yes indeed. I was, however, saved by a timely intervention.
Right after I had proposed to the future Mrs. JPC we were driving to visit my Dad at his lake cottage. As we drove past the marina there it was on a trailer: a 1951 Century wooden inboard speedboat with a Chrysler Marine flathead 6 for power.
I suggested that the boat was priced at almost exactly what I had paid for that engagement ring she was wearing. I suggested further that we could take back the ring, buy the boat, and be set for a lifetime of bliss on the lake. My suggestions were summarily overruled.
Hindsight tells me that her insistence on keeping that ring and avoiding the boat were both good calls. I think that I may finally be getting past my desire for one of those old wooden inboards.
My dad did… As poor as we were he had rich mans taste. 33′ steel roamer. Never touched water in his stewardship.
A friend abandoned 2 boat restoration projects on my rural property.
Inexplicably he helped himself to a Borg Warner Super T10 4 speed transmission I had (a moderatey valuable item) and traded them for a 14 ft Chrysler bow-rider and a 20 ft cabin cruiser. These boats were fiberglass wrecks, stripped of all equipment and full of rotted wood substructure. Technically they could be restored, but were not economically practical to do so. He stored them at my place 20 years ago and promptly abandoned them. I still have them.
The country is full of dilapidated wood/fiberglass pleasure boats. Such boats are simply not built to last. They are a temporary consumable, like a car driven in salty winters. Careful use, maintenance and storage will extend the life of such boats, wich is what I do with my ‘good’ boat, a 16 ft Doral, which already has seen extensive wood structure replacement. But I know, regardless of care the fiberglass will become brittle, crack and leak. Wood will rot and the boat will no longer be safe.
Metal pleasure boats tend to be better. At least they can be repaired while still being structurally sound.
As far as I’m aware very few lab tests have show significant decomposition of fiberglass laminates after 20-50 years in service. Some lab tests the military conducted back in the 60’s and 70’s showed the fiberglass getting stronger after 20 years actually. I myself have worked on fiberglass boats 60 or more years old and have seen little reason top believe they wouldn’t last much longer.
That said your point about how many boats are made is very true. They can be compared to houses in many ways. Most are kind of slapped together very cheaply and everything around the base fiberglass shell will deteriorate including wood reinforcements.
Had a boat once. Never again.
I was able to observe dads boatitis while growing up, but his never sat to rot.
Once around 1960 the boat being towed behind our Shasta trailer became unattached (dad forgot to push down the locking latch and no chains), drifted into the left lane, dad and brother retrieved the little speedboat).
Engine quit running once on one of his ourboard ski boats he had, we used his little electric fishing troll motor to get to shore.
One time on the Columbia river we watched an old boat with 2 huge new outboard motors try to do a beach launch with 2 big waterskiers, and it ripped the transom and motors of the old dryrotted boat right into the water.
Later when his aluminum siding business was going well, he stepped up to a wood ’36 Owens cabin cruiser he kept in a floating garage by the Portland Yacht Club. Brother hit a submerged log, we limped back on one engine and bent propshaft (had twin 283 or 327 Chevy’s). When we got to the boathouse they needed an extra bilge pump to keep it afloat, its had to be drydocked, no idea what the repairs cost.
Same boat, the hatches were open for refueling and mom stepped onto the deck without looking, landed in the bottom of the bilge next to the engine. To her dying day she was pissed we all couldn’t stop lauging at her, she was uninjured.
Guess that cured me of any boatitis, we had lots of fun on his boats, but I discovered watersking was not in my genes, unlike my parents and brother, my sister didn’t have the ski gene either.
Dear JPC, I have never owned an old wooden boat or even a fiberglass one. My brother, on the other hand, kept wooden boats on Lake Minnetonka for about forty years. It is a lot of fun but it is also a big expense. His also had the Chrysler flat-head 6. One day the engine conked out, classically, in the middle of the lake, and our daughter, then nine years of age, started crying and called, “Grandma” who was 1200 miles away! The boat had its original maroon leather seats and plenty of noise. The steering wheel was the 1949 Chrysler steering wheel (it was a ’49 Chris Craft) replete with chromed horn ring. During the Second World War and just after when gasoline was rationed for automobiles, you could get all you wanted for your boat (Huh?) We took family vacations to Lake George staying at a cottage during the war and then at a camp site. My Dad would rent a boat for the duration so that my Mom could go shopping around the lake and, of course, for fun. So, if you did not mind getting wet when you went to market, there was fuel aplenty to be had.
Thomas, when you say that you spent time on Lake George, are you referring to the great big one in New York State or the small one on the Indiana-Michigan state line north of Angola? My father’s lake place was on the second Lake George (although he spent time at the New York Lake George as a kid). He had three different boats there, a couple of fiberglass outboard runabouts (a Sears from the late 60s and a new one he bought about 1977) and also an aluminum pontoon boat. Fort Wayne was within an hours drive of quite a few lakes so I got my boating itch scratched via several friends and relatives. I got pretty good at skiing, but could never get up on one ski.
I’d assume the Lake George he is referring to is the one 200? some miles northwest of the Twin Cities, since he mentions Lake Minnetonka (which is barely southwest of Minneapolis, maybe 15 miles). It’s not a “huge” lake, but assuming I’m correct with the timeframe indicated from his post, it then would have been fairly uninhabited compared to now. Cabin/lake culture in Minnesota was, and still is, a huge thing for the upper middle class. My best friend since junior high had an amazing cabin on the St. Croix river just outside of Afton we always went to twice a year until the taxes got out of this world a few years ago. Sold and sadly missed…
I sort of caught “boatitis” by osmosis. My wife inherited her father’s 1995 pontoon boat (aptly named “Patti’s Inheritance”) back in 2009. It had suffered the ravages of Florida’s summers for its last few years as he was not able to keep up with her maintenance. We hauled it back to Wisconsin where it languished next to my back garage until spring of 2016, when it was decided that she needed to be completely renovated. I soon learned that BOAT actually means “Break Out Another Thousand”, as the project grew in scope by the week. She was finally sea worthy by August 2017, and my wife and three sons are pretty hyped about it. As for me, I am just NOT a sailor, so perhaps on days when they are out on the open seas, I can take a cruise of my own in my ’59 Dodge or ’69 Polara convertible…time will tell.
What’s the old quote? “A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money.”
Also, it stands for “bust out another thousand”.
Exactly Was going to post this myself Sadly, it is basically true
Or the old saw, “the happiest days of your life are the day you got the boat and the day you got rid of it.”
The boat pictured in this article is the famous Bertram 31-foot, deep-V fiberglass-hull originally known as the Bertram “V-31.” The deep-V, high deadrise hull design with longitudinal strakes, could make it through choppy water much better than any conventional design. This boat was designed by naval architect C. Raymond Hunt and is considered to be a true classic. The first boat (“Moppie”) was originally commissioned by Richard Bertram to run in the Miami-to-Nassau boat race in 1960, which it won easily, and it went on to become a favorite deep-sea fishing boat worldwide with a strong following even to this day.
In old boat world, Bertram is like, well not Rolls Royce, and not Ferrari, … Bertram is like Aston-Martin.
In the same league as Bertram are the Huckins Fairform Flyers (https://www.smartmarineguide.com/boats-for-sale/huckins-fairform-flyer) and the Hubert Johnsons (http://www.classicboatsnj.com/blog/2015/07/30/hubert-johnsons-famous-blackjacks/).
Everything else was second tier or lower, even Elcos and Matthews and Colonials.
Don’t forget Hinckleys one of the few boats that tends to appreciate with time.
Also Hatteras one of the first large fiberglass power boats.
But yeah the old Berts are legendary and much like you see over restored grand wagoners you will find many over restored and very pricey Bertram’s out there. You also get kind of the same mentality with classic Boston whalers.
http://www.metanmarine.com/
You are right; Hatteras and Hinckley boats are also top drawer vessels.
And the Boston whaler was a revelation when I first drove one and found it to be very stable, especially when over taking and cutting through the wake of a large boat going in the same direction. Unlike standard pointy bows, there was much less violent slewing one way or the other if the bow wasn’t exactly hitting the big overtaken wake at exactly 90 degrees. The Whaler’s cathedral hull design “contained” the side forces and allowed one to make that jump without the normal skittishness.
Hatteras Yacht Company of High Point, North Carolina (later “Hatteras Yachts”) was the pioneer in large-yacht fiberglass production, started (1960) around the same time as Bertram Yacht Company (Miami-based) and competed through the years in the 30-70′ fiberglass-yacht segment. The first Hatteras yacht, a 41-foot Flybridge “Convertible,” was the first production fiberglass yacht ever built over 30 feet.
Bertram deep-V hulls and Boston Whalers have a natural kinship, as both were designed by famed naval architect Ray Hunt. Many 31-foot Bertrams have been restored to a high level, but these boats in top condition are valuable and sought-after. To this day, there are few boats of this size that are as comfortable and competent in a rough sea as the deep-V 31. Ray Hunt’s deep-V design was simply a masterpiece!
The attached image of 1963 “Blue Moppie,” at speed, shows the exceptional rough-sea capability of the V-31.
The mold for the production Bertram V-31 (same as shown in the original photo in this article) was made directly from the racing prototype, “Moppie.” After winning the Miami-to-Nassau race (convincingly), the boat was cleaned, sanded and used as the “plug” for the original mold for the production fiberglass boats. That first “Moppie” shown below with Dick Bertram and Sam Griffith at the controls in the race.
Not really, other than my canoe adventures.
My grandfather the carpenter built himself a nice little wooden sail/rowboat in his retirement. After his passing the boat sat beside my parents’ house for a few years, deteriorating.
Grandpa had built it with non marine grade materials so it wasn’t really worth saving. Dad and I decided that the boat had done it’s job perfectly by slightly outlasting it’s builder. I took it up to a friend’s rural property and burned it. I felt a bit bad at the time but it was the right thing to do.
Well done grandpa.
It’s the green boat in the left of the photo (late 1970’s). Grandpa is fishing in the middle of the photo.
Good that you have this great picture. I have a painting my Grandfather made of Dad’s Owens 36ft wood cabin cruiser in 1966, on the Columbia River. He painted it after he and Grandma drove up from SoCal for a visit and spent a day on the river on the boat. We also went to Timberline Lodge so he put Mt. Hood in the background of the painting. That picture was always on my parents wall wherever they were living.
A highly appropriate ending. Well done Doug.
Doug a great site for home built cheap watercraft is duckworks magazine.
.http://duckworksmagazine.com/
Many cheap homebuilt plywood boats on there. Following in the footsteps of Bolger and Dynamite Payson.
I have owned a wood boat before and not buying another to restore. But I do like building them and hopefully in the next couple years I will have time to get a couple more plywood canoes built.
I’ve been thinking about it as I’ve never owned one yet and I’m not getting any younger. I thought about it a bit and near the end of the summer even the wife was wishing we had one. So I expect to have something for next summer. Definitely used and not too big or expensive.
Small boats are much more affordable and easier to handle. Several acquaintances of mine had good experiences with relatively small sail and power boats. They all made the error of upgrading to larger, more expensive boats, thinking the low cost and handling ease would continue. It never did. Fuel costs, towing difficulties, maintenance, insurance and usability all became exponentially worse as size increased. All regretted the decision.
Have to agree a 16′ run about or a trailer sailor are pretty easy to own. Getting bigger adds issues. As I recall scout you were a mechanic. I tend to tell people to go with outboards for serviceability and simplicity but most auto mechanics I know get annoyed with them. But you may want to looks at sterndrives or inboards (I prefer inboards for simplicity.) The engines tend to be just modified auto engines Mostly GM.
We’ve thought about it and discussed it a few times while sitting on the porch with a drink. However, instead we just mixed another drink and stayed on the porch and were able to change the subject. Thank goodness, we are impulsive enough when it comes to cars and houses. Boats, pets, and RV’s generally seem to be an urge that we’ve been able to control so far (Boats completely, the other items to an acceptable degree.)
I do encourage the kids to become friends with kids whose families have boats. So far that’s worked well enough.
Inheriting motion sickness from my father, I have been spared “boatitis”. Good genes, I guess. To paraphrase that famous line about boats: “A boat is a hole in the water that you throw [UP] into”. Well, for me anyway.
That being said, my motion sickness has not stopped me from wanting to learn to fly! But in that case, my budget would not allow for me the luxury of “a hole in the [tarmac] into which you throw money.”
About the only boat I can stomach is a catamaran. The twin hulls sit nice and flat on the water most of the time. I do fine with Pitch. I do fine with Yaw. Roll is NOT my friend. ?
My flying buddy always used to say, “I never got into aviation to save money.”
I find if I’m flying the plane, I don’t notice the motion sickness, most likely because my mind is on pilot tasks, and not being queasy. As a passenger, that’s when I start to feel it. An exception to that was flying a Stearman. That plane handles like a sports car compared to a Camry, when comparing it to a more student friendly Cessna 172. Lost my coffee that morning when we suddenly gained 200 feet of altitude due to a thermal. I had the stick at the time.
I was the same way as a kid. Riding in my Dad’s ‘68 Impala as an 8 year old kid, if we were on a windy-twisty, I’d get sick… then years later when I started to drive, car sickness was no longer a problem. I thought I’d out grown it, but recently I was riding with him in his Acura RDX, and felt that familiar queasiness. I love to fly, but it’s just not worth it. When flying commercially, I take Dramamine. But when I’m gonna get stick time or yoke time, I want nothing in my system, even if I’m just the student, or a ride along in a buddy’s plane.
I get carsick easily, although in normal driving I’m fine if I’m either behind the wheel or have good outside visibility to my internal gyros stay synced.
I did fine during most of my flight training, but did, in fact, ‘toss my cookies’ on two of my solo x-country flights, one of those as I was nearing the home airport pattern with no little blue bag. I folded up my chart into a cone and tossed it overboard (over a lake) before entering the pattern. Never got sick after I got my license, though.
The (not so) funny thing is that every time I’ve autocrossed over the past couple years, I’m done by about the 5th run, and in fact did lose my lunch after my last run a couple weekends ago.
I’ve never caught “boatitis” but I sort of had it inflicted on me. A guy I knew had a small logging business and I used to work on his trucks. He suffered a run of bad luck and ended up bankrupt. He owed me about a grand at the time, and he was a decent guy who felt bad about how things had turned out. He insisted on signing over his early ’70s Fiberform runabout, though I really didn’t want it. Before I picked it up someone else who was owed money liberated the outboard to recoup their losses I guess.
I decided to get the thing serviceable as a winter project, but soon learned about things like transom rot and fiberglass damage. And the damage salt water does to boat trailers. And the cost of a decent outboard. And, and, and. When I lost my storage/work area I traded the whole works for some engine parts I needed and never looked back. It sat behind my buddy’s place for a good 10 years after that though…
I’m retired from the U.S. Coast Guard and never wanted to become a search and rescue case, so no boat projects here. Theres a big difference between being stuck on the side of the road with an old car that can be towed home and being stuck in the open water in a boat that may or may not sink. When I finally bought my own boat a few years ago, it was a lightly used, well maintained and easy-to-operate 18 footer.
I just remembered I own four boats! They’re all Sevilor Tahitis, inflatable kayaks. My total investment is $90; $75 for the first (used) $15 for the second, used, and the other two were given to me, with leaks that were readily fixed.
We use them to go down our numerous rivers nearby, and I’ve taken one through Marten Rapids on the McKenzie, which is rated a III+. (image is from another similar kayak in Marten Rapids)
I do have to fix leaks every so often, so I’ve probably spent about $10-15 on repair kits. That’s it.
You’re a boat hoarder. Doug will come by and burn them whenever you’re ready so at least you have an exit strategy.
“The best type of boat to have is someone else’s”.
My family lived close to the intracoastal waterway in Tiitusville, FL where the waterway is nearly five miles wide in spots. We had a 14′ O’day Javelin sailboat for quite a few years – first trailered to the water, then docked when my parents moved into a waterfront condo. A fun little craft that one person could handle without much trouble. The pictured boat is like the one we had. My older brother (who now lives on the waterway) has had a couple of power boats since.
+1-
Every September my wife and drive to Lake Powell and spend a week floating on a houseboat. My buddy Anne owns owns the houseboat timeshare, and my pal Rhino brings his Centurion Ski boat.
Thanks to that, my investment consists of food and fuel, plus an occasional afternoon helping Rhino maintain or tune the 351 V-8 in his boat.
Never been a boat guy, although I have been tempted on a few occasions. Guess I listened to what my late father-in-law once said, having owned several Cobalt 20’ I/O bowriders back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s: “The only day better than the day you buy it is the day you sell it.”
I’ve never been a boat guy myself – and live too far away from a good body of water to make being one practical – but I did once have (about 20 years ago) a girlfriend in Santa Cruz who was in the final stages of restoring a boat with her brother when we first met, and did complete the job within a few months; we used to go out on boating excursions when we met up. I was quite oblivious to boats back then (and mostly still today) so I don’t recall who made the boat or the outboard engine (if I ever knew) nor do I know if it was made of fiberglass, wood, or something else. It was a simple boat with seating for about six. Those two had also spent a few years restoring a ’62 Stude GT Hawk, red inside and out, fitted with an R2 engine from a ’63 or ’64. Sadly, she had sold it just before we met so I saw it only in pictures.
My neighbor where I grew up had a decrepit boat behind the driveway that never moved in the 20+ years I lived there, which was behind a decrepit pop-up camper which also hadn’t moved at least since I was a little kid. In front of those two transportation conveyances in the driveway was an early ’70s Chevy Beauville Sportvan, which was replaced with a ’78 Dodge 15-seat Royal Sportsman van which was still there when I last was there less than 10 years ago. It is filled with boxes that are frequently removed and replaced with other boxes; just what is in those boxes is a longstanding neighborhood mystery.
Boats are too big and expensive for me, but I do work in home renovation, and have restored several vintage appliances of all sorts. Thats’s what I have instead of boatitis – a shed filled with about 8 old stoves, a few vintage dishwashers, a fridge, and a washing machine, all from the ’50s through early ’90s.
Living in Santa Cruz, I see a few boats like the one in Paul’s picture but many lots here are too small for that. The local boat/RV storage yard looks like 1 acre of nice stuff, and 9 acres of abandoned junk. However, it’s not uncommon to see the tips of 5 or 10 surfboards or SUP’s sticking up above the fence in someone’s side yard here.
That’s one of the issue with big boats even if you don;t use them the storage gets pricey. Also junking a fiberglass boat if difficult in many parts of the country.
Way too many times, fortunately the last time the fever afflicted me I was able to avoid disaster.
Falcon, Lots of boat, and even more work.
38 ft Tugboat built in the 1930s, I went to look at it with a Buddy of mine, it was listed on craiglist for “FREE” as it “had a couple of soft planks in the hull” After a thorough inspection we determined that might be the least of it’s problems and would cost about $20 k to get it floating again
A tug named Falcon. How completely incongruous.
As noted in my COAL intro, I grew up on my parent’s boats in the 1950s, mostly a post war Elco cruiser; wood of course. “On” the boats also included in, around, and under, scrapping barnacles and other marine growth, chiseling salt out of the exhaust manifold (salt water cooled). sanding and applying endless coats of oil based marine varnish and paint, and putting a fine hand on the water line.
Do In have a boat now? No.
Would I like a boat now? No.
Do rose colored glasses occasionally make me wish I lived near salt water and had a 42 foot Matthews sport fisher with twin diesels and a fiberglass hull, a flying bridge, outriggers, and a hatch in the floor of the bridge through which my first mate could hand me gin & tonics and beers a-la Ernest Hemmingway’s “Islands In The Stream”? Maybe. No. Sure.
But skip the Cuban WWII intrigue.
One of the most sublime memories of my youth was being given a ride on the flying bridge in a new 37 foot twin engine 1957 Colonial cruiser as the sun was setting and the boat was on a fast plane doing about 25 knots (a guess, but surely fast) over an almost glass like surface. The usually annoying sound of the twin gas engines on high revs was muted because we were so high above the main deck; the loudest sounds were the white bow waves cascading way off to both sides about one third of the way back from the bow of the boat. It was getting dark for such speed and I was was spotting the occasional red and green bouys (1950’s red right return) and looking for debris (easy to spot in the calm water) and watching the orange line in the water as the setting sun following us as we headed home to Freeport Long Island from a weekend on the water.
It was a beautiful, quite quiet, and yet powerful sensation that has stayed with me for the past 60 years.
I understand that any attempt to replicate that experience by buying a boat (certainly not a twin gas engine 37 footer) would be a disappointment. Some things are best left to our rose colored memory.
A few years ago my sister and her husband bought a home in Florida. After it became obvious that this wasn’t going to be their “summer home”, I started to joke with my BIL that he needed to get a boat…any kind of boat or start talking about the kind of boat he was looking for (even if he never bought one). As a resident of Florida it is/was expected that he own a boat of some kind.
I also told me sister she needed to trade-in her Subaru Outback for a large, white, GM-branded or Ford-branded SUV. (if for no other reason than that she is short, blonde, and has no kids as they have grown up and left home.)
I like boats but don’t want to own one.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite childhood memories by this story, though. My dad’s uncle (Great-Uncle Jack) liked airplanes and fast cars.
And I REALLY remember the glorious ride in his wooden speedboat, on Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. I remember him telling dad it was powered by a Chrysler engine.
Ever since then, I’ve had an affinity for Chris-Craft type wooden boats.
Kayaks have solved the “boatitus” affliction. $300 or $400 gets you on the water. No trailer, no registration, no fuel, no insurance. The hole in the water is so small you can’t see it to throw money at.
Everybody I know has one (or more). I have two of them, one up north, one down south.
And the sensation of being in flowing water is much more intense than in bigger boats, a huge advantage for those like me who live for two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen….
I like riding in boats – the bigger the better.
I would never own a boat, so will never get boatitis disease.
However, in a closely related condition, we got poolitis. Yep, an above ground pool, been in the backyard for 15 years or so now. Slowly but surely it has required a little bit more and a little bit more maintenance and investment year to year. First was the chlorinator that had to be replaced, then the solar blanket, then the winter cover, then replaced the chlorinator again but this time with a salt system, then a new (rebuilt) pump, and then a new liner and then and then and then….
Well it turned out that due to diminishing use, and even more maintenance now required (the salt system turned out not to be a lifetime solution after all), a third solar blanket would be needed, the three year old liner is already showing signs of degredation, and I’m sure I am forgetting something else, the pool as of next week is officially history. Like owning a boat, the two happiest days of ownership are the first day you have it, and the last day you have it.
A friend of mine got boatitis, but he got lucky. After tricking it out with all sorts of fishfinder equipment, GPS devices, engine fixes and the like, the damn thing was stolen out of its winter perch at the marina, trailer and all, and he cashed out.
When I was 12, my parents moved to Central Florida and bought a circa 1958-vintage house with a built-in pool. The enjoyable usage we got out of it never matched the seemingly endless maintenance. Guess whose job it was to take care of the pool? Teenage unpaid labor, of course. The old-fashioned filter lived in a well and had to be pulled out weekly and washed down with a hose, then replaced and treated with diatomaceous earth. Chlorine had to be added manually. I was constantly scooping pine needles off the top and vacuuming the bottom. Every six months the pool had to be drained and the walls washed down with muriatic acid (nasty stuff). I went away to college after six years and since I was the youngest child, my parents sold the house several months later and moved to a condo. They later admitted to me that they underestimated how much time and work I put in to take care of the pool and yard.
Dad had a wooden sailboat, maybe 18′ or so that got moved from house to house as I was growing up. I can only remember him actually working on it once, and when we again moved from GA to SC, he finally sold it.
Every Dad should have a boat project, is my theory. Something to say “I’m working on it,” that’s not actually being a money sink.
My Nieuport 11 replica is my boat project, although some folks around these parts might point out a couple Volkswagens that fit that description, too.
Me? No desire for a boat at all, not even a plastic kayak.
Oh, Dad did later buy a 21′ (or thereabouts) fiberglas sailboat that he sailed fairly regularly in Greenville, TX, then on Lake Sinclair in Georgia after he moved back. When his dementia started affecting his memory noticeably, he pretty much quit sailing, and eventually sold it to a friend (who I’m pretty sure bought it purely out of mercy toward Dad).
I once swapped a Triumph Herald coup’e for a 16ft glass over ply boat two Evinrude engines came with it I got both running fixed the faults(rot) in the boat with my mediocre woodworking skills and sold it after getting a $100 61 Austin Westminster automatic car for launching duties, I kept that but boats? yeah nar never again.
Stick to aluminum. I like boats even though I have no time for them. I own two Crestliners, they sit in the far reaches of the back yard waiting for me to get around to them. I visit them once in a while, they will probably outlive me.
IF I was to get a boat, and I don’t have boatitis at all, it would be an aluminum flat boat with a single digit horsepower outboard. You get the boat experience and it’s much, much cheaper, plus it’s small and light enough to paddle home.
I did enjoy a ride some 35 years ago on a wetbike (not a jetski) that you rode like a motorcycle.
Nope, still don’t have boatitis. Now if you mention caritis, I’m a chronic sufferer as I’m always thinking about the next car.
Those backyard boats may have another role than to float. Recently I passed a snug night in a 35-foot, 1930s luxury cruiser, safely anchored under tall trees in a back yard of a landlocked home in Fort Townshend, WA. Isn’t airbnb wonderful?
My father was bitten. I remember from early childhood a boat on a trailer in the driveway, and perhaps one time going out in it. My parents used to tell a story of me partially dismantling the engine as a youngster, frustrating Dad when he had difficulty finding where I had dropped the parts. I suspect that was dad’s first boat, and I also suspect he got it cheap, found out it was worth even less, and soon got rid of it at a loss.
A few years later, a more modest vessel arrived, a rowboat powered (occasionally) by a Sears outboard. Dad was an excellent automobile mechanic, but was often vexed by small engines, especially those of the two-stroke variety. I remember him trying to get that thing started in a barrel of water; pull after pull, adjusting, cursing, to little avail. We went fishing several times, using oars for propulsion when the cranky engine would not cooperate. This craft, too, went away eventually.
After I moved out, dad got, likely for free, a wooden boat that was likely worth less than free. I recall nicknaming it the Minnow, thinking that it would likely leave its passengers marooned, albeit absent the exotic locale. At least that boat had an automobile engine in it, so he was able to get that working. Rotten wood was another matter, and, though Dad was a good carpenter, that thing decomposed faster than he could repair it. The Minnow, after many months of repair and perhaps a few hours fishing, ended ignominiously as so much scrap metal and firewood, and seemed to cure Dad of his affliction.
It seems that I have learned something from the old man, as my personal waterborne fleet consists of kayaks and canoes. Not that I won’t take a ride in someone else’s powerboat when opportunity knocks, but I prefer the simplicity of human-powered vessels for myself.
Oh yes, chronically. I’ve been boatless for some time but drove around for a year with a 12′ Sea Nymph in the back of my F150 (we lived in an apartment. One does what one must), and now that we are out of the racehorse business, a pontoon boat looks pretty attractive….although there are those plans I’ve been perusing for cartop yawls…
I spread the disease through my family. First, my father. We did several family trips to Okoboji when I was a kid, in the footsteps of my mother who made trips there as a kid. Most years we rented a small outboard fishing boat, and I had deadly sin levels of envy for the burbling I/O fiberglass runabouts gassing up at the dock, and I made sure my dad knew.
My father bit, and around 1979 bought a very weather beaten 1960 or so fiberglass boat with era appropriate tailfins! Being turquoise, it did not really pick up the nickname of bat boat. My dad put a ton of work into the boat and the outboard, but the (I swear Sunbeam branded – like the blender people) was too far gone.
He soon traded for a modest 15 foot red tri-hull with white interior 1973 Chrysler Sport Satellite boat with probably a Johnson outboard (why not Chrysler Marine, I do not know). It was a pristine garage queen at purchase and that bright red made up for in personality what little the boat had in size.
We all learned to water ski behind it, and my dad was kind (brave, foolish, etc.) enough to let me take it out with friends in my college years. I honored that privilege as a good captain.
He kept if forever, but perhaps wisely sold it just as his kids may have thought of boats. It was really too old and undersized for most modern applications.
So, several years ago we filled the 33 foot garage bay we built on our new house specifically for boat ownership. Our Sea Ray isn’t very big in the size wars at the Ozarks, but serves us well in the boating mecca that Nebraska is not. A few years ago, it picked up a sister ship in the form of a jet ski.
My family has the fever at various levels, my oldest joined a college intermural water ski team for a few years. Just a few weeks ago, the world slowed down a bit, and just my wife and three kids were mostly just anchored, eating, talking and without cell service in the 21 footer that seems to follow me everywhere in my truck during the summer months.
Some years ago behind its original tow vehicle that is also still in my fleet, looking almost as good still today…
Isn’t it funny how boating’s horsepower “needs” have increased so much? Folks older than I am remember water skiiing behind a runabout with a 35 horse outboard. I learned to ski behind Dad’s Sears-branded boat and its 45 horse Sears-branded outboard. Friends would marvel at how quickly I would pop out of the water when skiing behind their boats. I had to learn a technique that would get you up out of the water behind a 45 horsepower boat (with 4 people in it). When Dad bought a new boat in 1977 (with a 55 horse Johnson) we felt like speed demons. 🙂 I can only imagine what is the minimum acceptable level of power today.
Our jet-ski runs 160 horsepower.
Inland boating has changed in 40 years. Our little lake sometimes sees vintage runabouts like my dad had, and they look overwhelmed in light wind chop, let alone the confluence of boat wake on a busy day.
Demands for passenger space and amenities mean boats are heavier – my dad’s boat had no storage, no stereo, seating for just 6. I don’t even recall an anchor.
And, the sports have changed up a bit. When my kids were younger, it was all about “tubing.” Since high school age, we’ve been pulling a loaded three man tube that is like pulling a 400 lb boat. It occasionally will bog down my 210 hp Mercruiser if the tube’s “bow” takes on wash.
And, the size wars are real on the bigger lakes, with wakes making the water just boil. Personally, I think there are too many 1 Percenter types running ridiculous 50 foot cruisers and cigar boats on these lakes. My boat, huge by my dad’s standards, is no match on a busy Saturday on a big lake – it’s just not fun.
When I moved to Vancouver after college I was really keen to get a daysailer. I found a second-hand Enterprise that, importantly, came with a trailer and storage space at a nearby public sailing club. The hull was fibreglass, but it had a plywood deck with some spiffy mahogany trim. The deck of course started to delaminate the following year, and tormented me for a number of years before I sold it.
For a number of years afterwards I rented ‘real’ sailboats (35-40 footers) with friends for a week or so for summer excursions up the coast – so much better than owning.
I am a sailor.
I can rent a 40-50 foot boat for a few days a year for $500/day.
When we lived in Lake St Louis MO (on the little lake) we had a couple of Sunfish sailboats for the kids, a 2-person pedal boat with a slow leak and a ComPac 16 microcruiser that was just a pain in the behind…more trouble than it was worth.
Now we have friends with a 27 foot sailboat on Brookville Lake in Indiana and we sail once a year with them…I buy dinner and everybody seems happy.
I’ve been involved in theater since a kid, and once I reached my teens fell in love with every leading lady I’ve had, and in each case, they with me. I was cast as Tony in “West Side Story” Lindy was cast as Maria, we fell in love, and thought it was more than a stage romance. She invited me to meet her parents after a few months. The two mile two lane paved driveway from the main road to their front door (through gates that looked like MGM) should have been a clue to her parents financial state. Hey, she drove a new Barracuda, I had no idea of the wealth. The house was big enough you needed a golf cart. When we declared our love, her dad took me in the library and talked awhile. He said he liked me, wanted to tell me his daughter was “As crazy as hell” and shouldn’t be trusted with anything more mechanical than a pencil sharpener. He told Lindy and I, if it was real, to take his new Continental convertible, drive to the coast, and stay at their beach house for the summer. We thought it was a great idea. Two days later, we’re on the coast, spent the first day on the private beach with her. Next day she said, “Let’s take the boat out.” This was my first clue there was a boat of any kind. I assumed a boat meant going out on the Pacific. I had been on the ship to Catalina years before, and the stern wheeler, I think on Lake Tahoe (was young enough I’m not sure) and over the years on ski boats and cabin cruiser’s on lakes. I was neutral to boats. I said “Okay”. At the harbor, she led me to a Huge thing, I think it was Chris-Craft, but had no idea they built anything this big. Lindy said it was 93′ and 25-30 wide, with four Chrysler Marine engines. It was sparkling white everywhere outside, and inside all wood, leather, chrome and lots of windows. I was very unsure about going out with this SHIP, she showed me charts, told me we’d follow the coast awhile then come back,she said “Daddy let me drive when we go out. She seemed to know what she was doing. She started the engines, a quiet rumble far away, told me to cast off. She seemed to expertly exit the harbor and head to sea, four men on the dock waved enthusiastically as we passed (only later did I find out these four men were referred to as “the crew” for the ship we were on.) All it takes to realize how small ’93 feet is on the Pacific is to get out of the sight of land. The ocean was calm and the ship seemed pretty stable, She headed back in about the time the engines quit. After trying a restart, and “uhmm’s and ahh’s” she declared she thought we were out of fuel. There was a panel of gauges, but unlabled. I couldn’t even find the engine room. I also noticed there was a lot of bobbing and rocking going on. Then the storm moved in. As darkness fell we were wallowing around with waves higher than us when we were in a trough. She did know how to operate the radio, mostly and called the Coast Guard. They found us, wanting me to go out and grab a line. I do okay in most situations, but dreams of drowning in the ocean from an early age left me unable to comply. No way. The extremely brave young Coast Guardsman jumped from their boat to the deck and seconds later was inside with us. It didn’t take him long to find the other three fuel tanks were full, and we followed the other boat in. The crew had called her father when we went out and by then was there when we got back in. He blamed Lindy completely/ I wasn’t used to boats or ships and hadn’t thought about having a crew. Her dad stayed the night in the beach house, with a “discussion” between them, she was yelling at me for taking her dad’s side, I hadn’t said anything. With escalating volume from her all night I decided we should follow her dad back home. We were in 4 more musical productions acting together, and fell in love each time, but she kept getting wilder as she didn’t grow up, and things ended. Since that incident, it seems that ships I’m on try to sink, (around the same time airliners I’ve been on try to crash, so I drive, I’m waiting for the bridge to Europe) I have no desire for a boat, although the Canadian car ferry to Vancouver island was quite nice sized almost 400 feet long. But also, the family records indicate a relative died on the Titanic, don’t think I’ll push it.
Grew up in a boating family but I’m the only kid obsessed with it. I bought my first boat when I was 13 a wooden Thompson. I worked on it but it left uncompleted and I switched to fiberglass.
I was so obsessed I went to marine trade school instead of university, much to my parents dismay. Since then I have worked all kids of different jobs in the marine industry. But with 3 kids I never have time for my boats. I bought a 19′ sailboat about 10 years ago that has been a very slow project mostly because I decided to do a gut job instead of a small project each year approach. I also am party owner of a 16′ fourwinns with a 70 hp Johnson. That boat will be in the water and hopefully so will the 13′ day sailor by father bought for my kids.
My father currently owns 4 boats so that’s where it came from but my mothers family also owns a lake house so we had a MFG with a 60 HP Johnson most of my childhood there, now replaced by a pontoon boat. When I was a kid we had a 23′ trailer sailor that we would spend a week or two and weekends on in Long Island Sound. A bit tight for a family of 5 but workable.
So yeah i have about the worst boatitis there is.
I’ve never owned a boat and I don’t have a history of vessel ownership in my family either, but what amazes me is when I see boats in neighborhoods far away from the sea, either fiberglass cabin cruisers or wooden fishing boats. When they are far inland, it’s usually because they need repairs, which are probably never completed based on how long I have seen them out of the water – maybe something to do with the cost factor I’ve seen popping up in these comments.
Never have been a boat person and never will be. Just a hole in the water into which one shovels money…
I already have a hole in the garage to throw money into. I have a friend who is into boats. He goes after solid structure with mechanical needs and as he puts it every year you
Bring
Out
Another
Thousand
I have wanted a canoe since probably forever yet never could bring myself to actually purchase one. I had a paddle but no canoe. It was in the basement of the house I bought. Buy the house and we’ll throw in a paddle for free.
My younger sister finally bought one of those 15′ colman canoes to go along with the two cheap kayaks. Canadian Tire specials for those northerners familiar with them. The Canoe had fold down molded seats and a centre cooler type of thing in the middle. It was very heavy at 90 pounds and bottom heavy at that. It resisted all efforts to turn it over onto a roof rack. Loading it on a car was a two person affair and next to impossible with noodley arms from a full day of paddleing the water slug that it was. It sat around mostly due to it’s weight problem and a decision was made to let it go cheap but not before warning the next owners about it. They were happy to have it as it would spend it’s life at the cottage on a lake and would not need to be moved other than into and out of the water.
My canoe story is different however. I was talking to a co-worker about kayaking when he mentioned that he had a canoe that was just taking up space. I asked how much and he said that since he had got it for free it would make sense to pass it along for free as well. He had got it for free because it sat under a tree in Huntsville Ontario and sometime during the winter a heavy load of snow and ice had fallen on it cracking it down the middle. Width wise thankfully. It was floppy end to end. His buddy who works with fibreglass repaired it and added a few ribs to give it strength. After a few years of frequent use it began spending more and more time hanging on the fence until the hooks finally pushed their way through.
The structure of it was very strong and the hook holes were above the waterline so no big deal other than stopping the cracks from propogating and laminating a patch here and there, hook holes included. When it was done it was the ugliest thing you ever did see so I decided on a colour to spruce it up. Kubota Orange for the outside and dove grey inside to keep the sun off the fresh fibreglass. As my neighbour put it “They’ll be sure to spot that from the rescue helicopter.” At 60 pounds or so it is light enough to single handedly load and carry and can be solo paddled easily.
My free canoe ultimately cost me about a hundred and fifty bucks in material including a ups that I repaired and gave to my co-worker. I got the canoe he wasn’t using and he got a ups that I wasn’t using so it all evened out. It’s been a few years and it’s as strong as it ever was so time to hit it with the D/A and give it a fresh new coat of Kubota Orange.
I have thought about getting a boat. $,$$$. Then something to pull it with $$,$$$. Then of course the upkeep $,$$$ x I don’t know how much more it would need. No! My $150 free canoe cured that. How many times has anyone gone alongside migrating fish or portaged over a beaver dam in a powerboat?
Canoes are great fun ! .
I got to use some Down East in the early 1960’s including wooden ones on Canindagiua (!SP!) lake, one of the New York ‘Finger lakes’ .
A few years before I retired, the City came up with three maybe four vintage Grumman aluminum canoes, two had U.S.N. marking and serial numbers stamped and welded on them .
I was offered to take one free , no thanx .
I’m sure they got good $ for them at the monthly auction, dirty and in desperate need of polishing but only one had any real dents .
-Nate
I discovered decades ago that boats are for your Friends and Family to own, you get to go boating or sailing and just pay some $ and do cleanup etc. , no major hassles and the stories are fully instead of tragic .
My middle Brother loves to sail and has a decrepit 40′ (IIRC) sloop rig boat that looks like it belongs in a junkyard but goes along nicely even so .
-Nate
I like boats and have an interest in ships and maritime history. I have sailed and raced on others’ yachts.
But there is are a number of reasons I do not own one and have no wish to own any watercraft.
The principal reason I choose to throw any money I can, and a lot of debt, at a fleet of 3 old, overly complex, sometimes unreliable old cars rather than a boat is simple…completing a 4 year ship and boat building trade course straight after school will do it every single time.