Late this past summer, I took possession of this boat, having answered an ad on Craigslist, one which, as it turned out had been up for well over a year, and for several months after the boat sank and had been brought back up. The fellow who gave me the boat ( it was "free"), was a retired salver, who wanted to see that the boat got a good home. Initially I was reluctant as the boat had been sunk, but then there are but so many free boats, and so I thought well, at least it's a hunter, how bad can it be... When I finally decided to go and take a look at it, It was much worse then I had imagined so of course I made immediate arrangements to get it moved to my backyard, and after waiting for the water level to rise to allow for extraction of the boat, it was finally time to bring it home.
After getting the boat to my house with the help of a local marina owner / boat mover, and adding some addl' supports to the blocking, I went to the DNR to get the title.Turned out the boat was titled in another state but registered in MD, for one thing, and that MD law does not permit gifting vehicles nor vessels outside of the immediate family. Anticipating this, I filmed a walk thru of my new mud filled waterlogged barnacle encrusted pride and joy on my tablet, which I tried to show to the gal at the DNR, who after 30 seconds or so said she'd seen enough. Reminded me of an Arlo Guthrie song. So after paying 140 bucks tax on my free boat, at last it was MY free boat. By the time I got back home, (from West Marine), it was starting to get dark, so I figured I'd clean a spot while I could still see...
That weekend I began cleaning in earnest, and vacuuming out as much water as I could. There was water coming in from somewhere, or a few somewheres, and as winter was coming fast, I was growing concerned about freezing water in the bilge etc. I was also at this time trying to do a general cleanup of the outside, so that I could begin to visualize this project moving ahead. Rest assured that the cleanup was not completed that week. It in fact took a few months as I had time to get it to the point where all the dirt and mud were gone from the inside, to this day I'm still only at about 97% clean, there are a lot of nooks and crannies for dirt to get into when a boat sinks.
There are a lot of things that this boat needed / needs... From making sure that this boat can be bone dry on the inside, to enhancing / repairing rigging and hardware, to dealing with all the stress caused me by all the stress cracks, I have my work cut out for me, but it is not my first rodeo. I have many projects planned , from small detail items, to crusability features, to performance enhancements, I won't list everything here at this moment, but will post my progress, starting with current and completed items, and then adding more as I continue thru this refit.
I hope that in posting this project, I may be of help to others who are working on similar boats, and that at least a few of you might find this to be interesting or entertaining.
After getting the boat to my house with the help of a local marina owner / boat mover, and adding some addl' supports to the blocking, I went to the DNR to get the title.Turned out the boat was titled in another state but registered in MD, for one thing, and that MD law does not permit gifting vehicles nor vessels outside of the immediate family. Anticipating this, I filmed a walk thru of my new mud filled waterlogged barnacle encrusted pride and joy on my tablet, which I tried to show to the gal at the DNR, who after 30 seconds or so said she'd seen enough. Reminded me of an Arlo Guthrie song. So after paying 140 bucks tax on my free boat, at last it was MY free boat. By the time I got back home, (from West Marine), it was starting to get dark, so I figured I'd clean a spot while I could still see...
That weekend I began cleaning in earnest, and vacuuming out as much water as I could. There was water coming in from somewhere, or a few somewheres, and as winter was coming fast, I was growing concerned about freezing water in the bilge etc. I was also at this time trying to do a general cleanup of the outside, so that I could begin to visualize this project moving ahead. Rest assured that the cleanup was not completed that week. It in fact took a few months as I had time to get it to the point where all the dirt and mud were gone from the inside, to this day I'm still only at about 97% clean, there are a lot of nooks and crannies for dirt to get into when a boat sinks.
There are a lot of things that this boat needed / needs... From making sure that this boat can be bone dry on the inside, to enhancing / repairing rigging and hardware, to dealing with all the stress caused me by all the stress cracks, I have my work cut out for me, but it is not my first rodeo. I have many projects planned , from small detail items, to crusability features, to performance enhancements, I won't list everything here at this moment, but will post my progress, starting with current and completed items, and then adding more as I continue thru this refit.
I hope that in posting this project, I may be of help to others who are working on similar boats, and that at least a few of you might find this to be interesting or entertaining.
