[V8] Boats....

[Unka Bart]

Hah!  Now that the second happiest day of my life, the one to which you 
make reference, is safely behind me; NOTHIN' gets me all wound-up any 
more.

Well, other than the USUAL, of course... (Susan, natch, and... hmmmm, I 
guess that's the entire list these days...)

Which reminds me of  the 90 year old gent who's sons decided to  treat 
him to the services of the most expensive, ummm, "Escort" they could 
find for his birthday present.  When they paid the lady in question,  
they told her to knock on the old man's door and tell him that she was 
there to bring him super sex for his birthday.  So she did, and when he 
answered the door and heard her announcement, he paused for a  moment 
before answering, in a quivering voice,

"I believe I'll have the soup, thank you very much."

yer kindly ol' Unka Bart

> Now yer gonna get Unka Bart all wound up again, since he sold his 
> Carver...
>
> Roger M. Woodbury wrote:
>> My wife thinks we should buy another one.  Well, it's a little more 
>> complicated than that.  I was looking through the
>> usual lists and moaning over how dismal the V8 scene is right now:  
>> few cars
>> available, and even those that look any good are simply not bringing 
>> any
>> money.  (did you notice the rather clean '91 that didn't sell on eBay 
>> over
>> the weekend.  Quite  afew miles but not even $1800....dismal).
>> All of which made me start to skim through the boat ads, and I 
>> wondered if
>> anyone else on this list has more than a passing interest in wooden 
>> boats.
>> No, I am not talking about a vintage, wood Hinckley Pilot 
>> 35...although that
>> would be nice.  I am too old and have neither the money nor the time 
>> to
>> think seriously about sailing.  No, I am thinking about boats like 
>> the Lyman
>> Islander of the 1950's, or perhaps the Chris Craft Seaskiff's of the 
>> 1960's,
>> and I am thinking again about buying and restoring a wood boat.
>> Back when my second wife and I decided to go separate ways, and I 
>> moved back
>> "Downeast", shortly after arriving here ("here" is within shouting 
>> distance
>> of Acadia National Park), I spent one bright sunny late August 
>> afternoon
>> watching quite a few boats go back and forth on the bay out front.  I 
>> made
>> up my mind to buy a boat for the next season, and moor it out in 
>> front of
>> the house as my Dad did when I was little here in the summer.  In 
>> Uncle Henry's...the little sell and swap cottage industry weekly...I
>> found the perfect candidate.  It was a 19' Thompson labstreak and was 
>> way
>> Downeast in Addison.  It was cheap:  around $900 as I recall.  It was 
>> very strange to see that boat, sitting on a barn floor on old tires.
>> It was in pretty good shape, although it needed paint and endless 
>> hours of
>> sanding on the brightwork of the hull, windshield and interior, but 
>> it was
>> complete and sound.  It was probably a 1962 by the numbers, but it 
>> wasn't
>> important: I would buy it, and did.
>> The trailer was the hard part.  There wasn't one.  Then, again to 
>> Uncle
>> Henry's, I found a trailer for sale that was perfect.  I wanted a 
>> bunker
>> trailer, and the one that I found was a bunker/roller trailer of 
>> suitable
>> length way the heck and gone up in Millinocket.  Owned by a dentist 
>> who had
>> bought a bigger boat and trailer and no longer needed this one.  So I 
>> put boat and trailer together and started to work.  I have no idea 
>> how
>> many hours I spend painting sanding varnishing and so on.  But in the 
>> end,
>> it looked really good....never really finished the insides, but I did 
>> enough
>> so that it looked like a mint, Thompson of the era, although not a 
>> concourse
>> job....hard to do that for salt water, anyway.
>> I had a boat mechanic friend who had rigged my first boat ten years 
>> before,
>> and he knew of a Johnson V4 90 horse that he had rebuilt and which was
>> available....perfect.  As a caveat to that story, in 1978 when I was 
>> at the
>> absolute bottom of my fortunes I relocated here after my first wife 
>> decided
>> that I should live in the Maine woods instead of anywhere near her.  
>> One of
>> my first jobs here when I was in survival mode, was to refinish the
>> brightwork on a 19' Thompson labstreak boat owned by a local
>> contractor....did four days work for $4 an hour and was glad of it.  
>> Anyway, I ran into the contractor after finishing my boat. He was 
>> retired
>> now, and I asked him whatever happened to his Thompson.  "Oh," he 
>> said. "I
>> decided that it was too much work to keep up, so I sold it quite a 
>> while ago
>> to some fisherman way down in Addison!".  It was the same boat.
>> So, now my wife and I are thinking about retiring to some new 
>> adventures.
>> On tap is a new home on property that we are looking for much further
>> Downeast.  Yes, we are seriously contemplating leaving this property 
>> because
>> it is getting a bit too crowded and developed here for us.  AND I 
>> have been
>> thinking about another wood boat for those summer afternoons.
>> My all time favorites of course, are the wood Lymans, or Thompsons or
>> perhaps Old Towns.  (But Old Towns are so old now that they are really
>> scarce).  Then there are the Chris Craft Sea Skiffs.  Been looking on 
>> eBay for this magical boat...it is probably two or three
>> years away now anyway, so this may be a fantasy.  But when I was 
>> stationed
>> in Florida just after getting back from Southeast Asia, there was a 
>> Sea
>> Skiff at the marina where my friend kept his old Chris Craft.  That 
>> Sea
>> Skiff was about 28-feet long and had twin 283 Chevy's.  AND there is a
>> gorgeous one on eBay as we speak....it is probably not going to bring 
>> any
>> real money....but, no.  Not that one.
>> But I might be tempted to buy something around 24 feet with a single 
>> engine.
>> Inboard.  Preferably with a tired engine...and convert it to diesel, 
>> maybe?
>> Because now that I actually might find the time to restore another 
>> wood
>> boat, anything with a V8 will cost so much to operate that I might 
>> restore
>> it and then not be able to put fuel into it...hmmm.  Yeah,  I 
>> know...kinda off topic.
>> Roger
>> _______________________________________________
>> Audifans V8 mailing list
>> Send posts to: mailto:V8 at audifans.com
>> Manage your list connection: 
>> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/v8
>> Have an Audi V8 question?  Check the Audifans Knowledgebase!
>> http://www.audifans.com/twiki/bin/view/Audi/V8
>> Have a V8 answer? ... Please help others by adding to the KB ... all 
>> contributions welcome!
>