Re: Starcraft Fever UPDATED W/pictures
Ok, I'm here to talk some sense into you people
RF is also totally crazy. If I lived within an hour of you, you'd have a lot more of these boats done because I'd be over there all the time helping you work on all those babies. Got any pics of the free Chieftain? You could probably drive us all nuts with them if you had any.
There are three things keeping me from picking up that Chieftain, one is lack of a place to put it, second, it's an I/O boat, and third, I really don't want any boat that I can't haul around and launch with a small truck.
I thought about taking it and doing an outboard conversion using a bracket. Chances are the motor is toast, the motor box is collapsed and the motor is exposed. The last registration on the boat is 1974. I believe it's a 1968 or 69 model. The trailer it sits on now is a painted older Holesclaw with coil springs and twin axles, it looks like it may have been two single axles rigged together. The wheels are rusted through, the bearings are seized.
The hull itself is in great shape, the paint is clean but all else is gone, the cabin and all its trim and wood has collapsed. The back wall and intermediate walls of the cabin have fallen in, the plywood has separated and collapsed. If I were to redo it, I'd probably do away with the second wall and make it all one big cabin.
It was still there two weeks ago.
I didn't take any pics, it's somewhat buried in overgrowth next to an old garage. It's a one owner boat if that makes any difference at this point, and it don't look like it's got any salt damage.
If I'm in that area with my camera, I'll see if I can get a few pics.
My biggest issue this year is not enough time to get anything done, it seems it's either raining, I'm working, or I'm out of town.
After having many different boats, I've come to the realization that I strongly prefer an open boat, one that's easy to launch and load, easy on fuel, and one that's easy to fish off of. It don't need to be fast, just fast enough to stay on plane. My biggest issue with the Starchief is that it's too hard to cast anchor in the bay, at 6'3" tall and 300 lbs, there's no crawling or reaching through the hatch, and forget walking on the bow or roof.
I like having the storage space, especially in rough weather but I find I fish and catch more fish inshore rather than out in open water.
The Starchief would be a good family boat on a big river or large lake, more of a boat for a day out with the kids, than a boat to use in big water for a day out fishing.
The SS will be my boat for the back bays, fishing and crabbing, the Duratech will handle the bay and rivers, and the Grumman will be my lake boat for freshwater.
I did consider removing he cabin on the Starchief and making it a standard closed bow boat, after all, it does have the dash panel and I have a windshield, but I hate to ruin such a cool boat, and the Duratech will no doubt be the boat of choice if I were to do that anyhow.
I had intended to redo the deck in the Starchief, hang a later model Optimax on it which I already own, repaint it, and use it for fall stripers but once I found the center console Duratech, I think that's the better set up. The only advantage to the Starchief would be if it were bitter cold out, but it's rarely calm enough out where as I'd take an 18' aluminum boat out in sub freezing weather in mid winter.
