Sea18Horse
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
- Messages
- 626
Greetings everyone! I haven't been around for a while. I was fairly active on the Johnson/Evinrude outboard forum a few years ago. And I had a project going on this forum about my '83 ClackaCraft drift boat that I was/am restoring. I kind of shelved it because I couldn't manage to get a carport cover built to put it in. And I couldn't face getting it all done and then having it sit out in the weather.
So fast forward to last month and a lady who Mrs.SeaHorse works with says "hey, do you guys want a boat?" So the wife says 'well send me some pictures.'
The Story is it belonged to her older brother who passed away last year. And among her 10 other siblings and various other family members no one wanted it. No surprise there, No sane person would want a 53 year old wooden boat right? So we talked about it for a bit. I said we both have to be on board with this thing 100% or it can't work. ok? So we decided to take it. I told my dad about it and he said "don't do it, run the other way!" His dad had a 30s or 40s Chris Craft so he remembered all the time spent scraping, sanding and varnishing. That's ok, my kids don't listen to me either.
An acquaintance of the lady manages a marina a few miles upriver from her brothers floating home where the above pictures were taken. He's been looking after it since last October when they moved it. It was sitting out tied up at a dock at the marina for a few months covered by a leaky tarp. It's now in a boat house at the marina which I'm now renting for a few months while I get all my ducks in a row.
So far I've gotten the batteries charged up. They seem to be ok at this point. They're 3 years old and they were stone dead when I started. They'll work to get all the systems up & running but they don't seem to have a lot of reserve. I've gotten the shore power squared away. The dual bank battery charger works well. It's a Pro Mariner ProSport 8. Its an older one so needs updating but it works fine for now. The fridge is dead but the microwave and toaster oven still work. The aft bilge pump and switch are missing. The Forward bilge pump is junk. The switch still works but of course needs to be replaced. Dan the manager of the marina put an automatic 110V sump pump in the boat just in case but after I got all the rain water out from the leaky tarp it's bone dry in the bilge with no sign of rot anywhere that I can see inside.
the most exciting bit is I got it running today.........Aaaaand of course the movie I made is 0.07mb too large to upload. Aaaaaargh!!! I'll get it figured out and post it later, along with more pictures. But it sounds great!
Updates and more pictures to come.
Cheers..................................Todd
So fast forward to last month and a lady who Mrs.SeaHorse works with says "hey, do you guys want a boat?" So the wife says 'well send me some pictures.'
The Story is it belonged to her older brother who passed away last year. And among her 10 other siblings and various other family members no one wanted it. No surprise there, No sane person would want a 53 year old wooden boat right? So we talked about it for a bit. I said we both have to be on board with this thing 100% or it can't work. ok? So we decided to take it. I told my dad about it and he said "don't do it, run the other way!" His dad had a 30s or 40s Chris Craft so he remembered all the time spent scraping, sanding and varnishing. That's ok, my kids don't listen to me either.
An acquaintance of the lady manages a marina a few miles upriver from her brothers floating home where the above pictures were taken. He's been looking after it since last October when they moved it. It was sitting out tied up at a dock at the marina for a few months covered by a leaky tarp. It's now in a boat house at the marina which I'm now renting for a few months while I get all my ducks in a row.
So far I've gotten the batteries charged up. They seem to be ok at this point. They're 3 years old and they were stone dead when I started. They'll work to get all the systems up & running but they don't seem to have a lot of reserve. I've gotten the shore power squared away. The dual bank battery charger works well. It's a Pro Mariner ProSport 8. Its an older one so needs updating but it works fine for now. The fridge is dead but the microwave and toaster oven still work. The aft bilge pump and switch are missing. The Forward bilge pump is junk. The switch still works but of course needs to be replaced. Dan the manager of the marina put an automatic 110V sump pump in the boat just in case but after I got all the rain water out from the leaky tarp it's bone dry in the bilge with no sign of rot anywhere that I can see inside.
the most exciting bit is I got it running today.........Aaaaand of course the movie I made is 0.07mb too large to upload. Aaaaaargh!!! I'll get it figured out and post it later, along with more pictures. But it sounds great!
Updates and more pictures to come.
Cheers..................................Todd
