With my 2 month marathon of spring repairs coming to an end I am slowly getting it compiled into a build thread for others to reference, and for public ridicule of my own repair methods ha!
Back story: I moved to Jackson after a summer of working on Tall Ship schooners in the Keys (and a trip to Europe), and just so I had a toy to play with on the lakes in the summer, planned to bring out an old Prindle 18' my dad and I had drug out of a field and fixed a few years back. In the process of working out when to make the drive to get the cat, i was at work listening to Trash and Treasure, a local call in radio show where people sell things. This dude phoned in and said he had a Hunter 22 for $500. I called bull ****, and assumed it was in half or something. After much deliberation on weather or not i should try and buy it, i just went and looked for the hell of it. The guy selling it was classic looking guy in his 60s, Hawaiian shirt, boat shoes and cargo shorts. He was moving to FL (in like a month) to buy a catamaran because he was tired of winters, and just needed this boat out of his storage space so he could cancel the lease. First off, this thing was huge. Way bigger than I expected, especially sitting up on this tall trailer. I got the tour...the interior was pretty clean (ya know, except for the rotten bulkhead) the deck had its fair share of gelcoat cracks but it was all firm and only aesthetic, the sails were there, and the motor was tucked away in a van. It hadn't been in the water for a few years and there was, as i got digging closer the following summer, a bit of disrepair hidden away.
The trailer was in pretty good shape, the lights worked (trailer brakes were wired wrong as i found out later), and the bearings all had brand new grease in them, bearings all good as well. The boat came with a host of tools and a ton of spare parts, a 4 speaker stereo system, all the cushions, fenders, bilge pumps (new in box) and paddles. We set the motor on the mount, put it in a bucket of water, and it fired right up after 10 pulls. That beautiful 9.9 2 stroke sounded like success to me! I arranged the stays and shrouds to make sure the mast was ready to rise, and I determined it was ready to go trial run at the lake. Over the next week i wanted a pretty looking boat, and because it didn't need any obvious repairs (or so i thought at the time)...we removed all the teak and sanded and stained it.
The first launch went pretty well. A few hiccups like getting permits and having to fill the outboard at the parking lot of a napa, but it really just worked great! When I bought the boat the PO said the jib had rust stains on it and was dirty and would probably need to be replaced, and that it came with 110-120% main sail. Not thinking much of it i put up what he said was the jib...and it was strikingly apparent after about 30 second that it was not the right sail and did not fit at all. We pulled out what he said was the other "main" and sure as ****, it was spotless and fit perfectly. That dingus had been using the wrong jib sail for years and never realized it. As it turned to evening and we tried to get back to the marina our motor wouldn't run for more than 3 or 4 minutes for dying and refusing to start. This was annoying and took us forever, and made it basically one shot to get off the dock and stab it back on the trailer. It took many more outings for us to realized the hose line was backwards and the bulb direction was going away from the motor, as well as the choke valve getting stuck in full choke mode if you pilled the knob too hard.
I used it the rest of that summer pretty often, blissfully ignorant at some of the things that needed to be fixed. When i noticed water in the bilge after a day on the lake, and water in the forward v birth and the soft feeling bulk head I started looking closer and realized I was going to have a busy spring recommissioning after winter was over.
Back story: I moved to Jackson after a summer of working on Tall Ship schooners in the Keys (and a trip to Europe), and just so I had a toy to play with on the lakes in the summer, planned to bring out an old Prindle 18' my dad and I had drug out of a field and fixed a few years back. In the process of working out when to make the drive to get the cat, i was at work listening to Trash and Treasure, a local call in radio show where people sell things. This dude phoned in and said he had a Hunter 22 for $500. I called bull ****, and assumed it was in half or something. After much deliberation on weather or not i should try and buy it, i just went and looked for the hell of it. The guy selling it was classic looking guy in his 60s, Hawaiian shirt, boat shoes and cargo shorts. He was moving to FL (in like a month) to buy a catamaran because he was tired of winters, and just needed this boat out of his storage space so he could cancel the lease. First off, this thing was huge. Way bigger than I expected, especially sitting up on this tall trailer. I got the tour...the interior was pretty clean (ya know, except for the rotten bulkhead) the deck had its fair share of gelcoat cracks but it was all firm and only aesthetic, the sails were there, and the motor was tucked away in a van. It hadn't been in the water for a few years and there was, as i got digging closer the following summer, a bit of disrepair hidden away.
The trailer was in pretty good shape, the lights worked (trailer brakes were wired wrong as i found out later), and the bearings all had brand new grease in them, bearings all good as well. The boat came with a host of tools and a ton of spare parts, a 4 speaker stereo system, all the cushions, fenders, bilge pumps (new in box) and paddles. We set the motor on the mount, put it in a bucket of water, and it fired right up after 10 pulls. That beautiful 9.9 2 stroke sounded like success to me! I arranged the stays and shrouds to make sure the mast was ready to rise, and I determined it was ready to go trial run at the lake. Over the next week i wanted a pretty looking boat, and because it didn't need any obvious repairs (or so i thought at the time)...we removed all the teak and sanded and stained it.
The first launch went pretty well. A few hiccups like getting permits and having to fill the outboard at the parking lot of a napa, but it really just worked great! When I bought the boat the PO said the jib had rust stains on it and was dirty and would probably need to be replaced, and that it came with 110-120% main sail. Not thinking much of it i put up what he said was the jib...and it was strikingly apparent after about 30 second that it was not the right sail and did not fit at all. We pulled out what he said was the other "main" and sure as ****, it was spotless and fit perfectly. That dingus had been using the wrong jib sail for years and never realized it. As it turned to evening and we tried to get back to the marina our motor wouldn't run for more than 3 or 4 minutes for dying and refusing to start. This was annoying and took us forever, and made it basically one shot to get off the dock and stab it back on the trailer. It took many more outings for us to realized the hose line was backwards and the bulb direction was going away from the motor, as well as the choke valve getting stuck in full choke mode if you pilled the knob too hard.
I used it the rest of that summer pretty often, blissfully ignorant at some of the things that needed to be fixed. When i noticed water in the bilge after a day on the lake, and water in the forward v birth and the soft feeling bulk head I started looking closer and realized I was going to have a busy spring recommissioning after winter was over.
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