Re: Just picked up a 65 Cruiser's Inc 19ft Woody
Ranger, I paid $500 for the boat/motor/trailer and therein lies the morale of this story. Prior to buying it, I had been to an antique wooden boat show in Naples Maine on the Causeway. One of the things I noticed was the lack of orginal trailers for the boats that were not in the water. The trailer I was buying while needing work was solid. Another thing was that what little research I could do in a couple days turned up that the Golden Meteor Johnson would fetch in excess of $1,000 in a resale. So when I went to pick up the boat, it was with the idea in mind that even if the boat was firewood I could recover my money.
I am a trained marine designer. I have worked on hull design both manually and with CAD. I was invovled in developing a CAD program that automatically figures that fair from one surface to another, so I knew what I needed to see where the boat transitioned from the V of the bow to the flat bottom of the stern. Sitting on a trailer with bad wheels on uneven ground, the best I could do was check the keel for straight (and that was a big if) Once back here at my property on Sebago, I leveled the trailer with jack stands on all three planes and then checked the keel with string (straight) I also checked the lines of the lapstrake planking. at some point there are one or two rows that should run parallel to the rails of the trailer. As stated above, knowing how to fair a transition line on the hull of a boat I was able to tell if the lines where the hull transitions were out of fair and they were not. Lastly, a thorough check of all planking, ribs etc have not turned up a single piece of rot or even punky wood. The damage I will have to repair is limited to the windshield frame assembly, the top of one front seat storage cabinet and the missing rear seat. Your boat looks to be in good condition from the two photso in your post. I would advise checking Lady Ben and Mitch Lapoint's sites as well as E-Bay and Craigslist to get an idea what it would sell for. Personally I feel that my seller could have cleaned up the boat, presented it better and gotten more money. My good, his bad. I certainly wasn't going to ask him to raise the price. The thing is in my experience that pricing is the key in that if you ask too much, you scare people off and if you ask too little you also scare people off. I thought when I 1st saw mine on craigslist NH that it must be a firewood because of the low price. I figured what the heck and took a ride and am glad I did. Good luck with your sale.
PS
I notice your bilge pump running. Also that your lower unit is very elevated. A common problem with the interface boot is that they get pinched when you raise the lower unit to it's max. Once above the keel any further is wasted. While you probably need a new boot, keeping the lower unit not so high up would cut down on the water leaking in. Most boots I've seen all leak at full tilt and hardly or not at all with the lower unit fully lowered.
