TdLpps
Seaman Apprentice
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2008
- Messages
- 35
My 2008 summer vacation actually began, in spirit anyway, at the tail end of my 2007 summer vacation.
My family--parents, sister and her family, and my wife and kids-- gathered on a rented lakefront cabin on Big Bear Lake. I took my dual sport motorcycle and rode the trails and dirt roads on the mountains above the lake and gave my kids and nephews rides around the lake and around town. We all fished off the empty boat dock and caught catfish almost every day.
Our neighbors in the cabin next door to us had a wakeboard boat and went out each morning and evening. Two days before our vacation was over they invited us to go tubing, and then wakeboarding, with them. Needless to say, the kids all loved it. We had more fun on those last two days than we had the entire week before it.
I had never owned a boat but did have many pleasant memories of boating as a kid growing up in Wisconsin. And ever since I could remember I always wanted one of the simple sixties runabouts I saw by the dozens. As nice as the boats got through the seventies and into the eighties and nineties, I always like the simple lines and curved windshields of the old runabouts.
So, fast forward to April of this year. With a tax rebate check incoming, my family agreed to spend it on a boat we could use this summer. I overlooked a sparse Craigslist ad that read: "15 foot aluminum boat, has steering wheel and seats five, outboard engine". It included no pictures. Several times I passed-up the ad because it just didn't tell me anything. A call to the owner didn't help much but I wanted to look at it because he said it was a 1965 with a newer outboard.
I looked at it, low-balled an offer, and he accepted.
So, this spring I became a first time boat owner and brought home this:
I eventually found out that it was a 1959 15 foot Naden N-15W Hawk.
My neighbors laughed at me. My brother in law laughed at me. My kids would have preferred a 23 foot day-cruiser with a 454. I saw something under its ugly black, sprayed-bedliner finish.
This isn't a resto thread--I have kind of orphaned my resto thread in the restoration category above--so I'll paraphrase what was done this spring and summer to prepare it for our summer vacation. I replaced the steering with a single cable Teleflex system, built a wiring harness, replaced the fore and aft lighting, stripped most of the bedliner from the hull, repaired the sheet aluminum seating, and when the Evinrude motor broke down on every preliminary trip we took, I sold an extra motorcycle I had and bought a near-new 2007 Honda 50 horsepower outboard and had it mounted and completed one week before we left to go out of town for eight days. In addition, I became a two-time boat owner temporarily when I found a hammered old Glasspar with a hull filled with water and liberated its windshield and bimini top before selling it for a $200 profit.
The intention was to have a boat we could use to cruise the lake, fish out of, and pull a tube or the kids on skis or wakeboards. I had a list of things I needed to complete by the time we left, but the result would be a functional boat only, not a full restoration.
The Naden, docked, on our first night:
The cabin, ready for our party of ten, as seen from the dock:
My daughter stole my hat and wouldn't give it up until the last day of the trip....
.....and left me with my dorky straw hat:
She drove every time I'd let her:
....reached my six picture limit. To be continued.
My family--parents, sister and her family, and my wife and kids-- gathered on a rented lakefront cabin on Big Bear Lake. I took my dual sport motorcycle and rode the trails and dirt roads on the mountains above the lake and gave my kids and nephews rides around the lake and around town. We all fished off the empty boat dock and caught catfish almost every day.
Our neighbors in the cabin next door to us had a wakeboard boat and went out each morning and evening. Two days before our vacation was over they invited us to go tubing, and then wakeboarding, with them. Needless to say, the kids all loved it. We had more fun on those last two days than we had the entire week before it.
I had never owned a boat but did have many pleasant memories of boating as a kid growing up in Wisconsin. And ever since I could remember I always wanted one of the simple sixties runabouts I saw by the dozens. As nice as the boats got through the seventies and into the eighties and nineties, I always like the simple lines and curved windshields of the old runabouts.
So, fast forward to April of this year. With a tax rebate check incoming, my family agreed to spend it on a boat we could use this summer. I overlooked a sparse Craigslist ad that read: "15 foot aluminum boat, has steering wheel and seats five, outboard engine". It included no pictures. Several times I passed-up the ad because it just didn't tell me anything. A call to the owner didn't help much but I wanted to look at it because he said it was a 1965 with a newer outboard.
I looked at it, low-balled an offer, and he accepted.
So, this spring I became a first time boat owner and brought home this:
I eventually found out that it was a 1959 15 foot Naden N-15W Hawk.
My neighbors laughed at me. My brother in law laughed at me. My kids would have preferred a 23 foot day-cruiser with a 454. I saw something under its ugly black, sprayed-bedliner finish.
This isn't a resto thread--I have kind of orphaned my resto thread in the restoration category above--so I'll paraphrase what was done this spring and summer to prepare it for our summer vacation. I replaced the steering with a single cable Teleflex system, built a wiring harness, replaced the fore and aft lighting, stripped most of the bedliner from the hull, repaired the sheet aluminum seating, and when the Evinrude motor broke down on every preliminary trip we took, I sold an extra motorcycle I had and bought a near-new 2007 Honda 50 horsepower outboard and had it mounted and completed one week before we left to go out of town for eight days. In addition, I became a two-time boat owner temporarily when I found a hammered old Glasspar with a hull filled with water and liberated its windshield and bimini top before selling it for a $200 profit.
The intention was to have a boat we could use to cruise the lake, fish out of, and pull a tube or the kids on skis or wakeboards. I had a list of things I needed to complete by the time we left, but the result would be a functional boat only, not a full restoration.
The Naden, docked, on our first night:
The cabin, ready for our party of ten, as seen from the dock:
My daughter stole my hat and wouldn't give it up until the last day of the trip....
.....and left me with my dorky straw hat:
She drove every time I'd let her:
....reached my six picture limit. To be continued.
