The thread has started the memory juices flowing.
If you have time, let me tell you about my Brother-in-law Jack, and his boating experiences...
This happened many years ago, and he has since passed away. too young...
Jack was by no means mentally impaired. As a VP at Amica, quite successful.
Thing is, he wasn't much into "fixing", and his home tool chest consisted of one Phillips screwdriver, an ice cube cracker hammer, and a bent table knife.
We bought him a home handyman kit for Christmas and after he passed away, 5 years later, we found the screwdriver, hammer and kitchen knife, but the kit was still in the Christmas wrapping in the back of a closet.
We all lived in Rhode Island and spent a lot of time at the beaches and in the bay, boating. Now this was around the time of transition in boats, from wood to Fiberglas. Rhode Island has many, many boat yards, and it is common to see dozens or even hundreds of boats, up on the ways... (ways are the stilts that hold the boat upright when out of the water) Many, many wooden boats... big cabincruisers and yachts. Wooden boats that the owners just kept, after they upgraded to fiberglas, because they thought they had value.
A side story here... Uncle Dean, a policeman, bought a 55 footer, small yacht for $3000, and just painted the outside with house paint, and left it on the ways. Saturday nights, the police, their wives and the auxillary would all show up, climb the ladder and party til Sunday morning. Very elegant... even though the boat would never, ever go to sea again.
Anyway, Jack decides to become a boater, though he's essentially helpless about fixing, and not to inclined to adventure beyond the easy chair, watching TV. He finds a 25 foot Chris Craft cabin cruiser... very nice, and buys it for the low price of $5000, then adds a $1500 trailer and brings it home to the driveway, to spruce it up, and detail it. New windows in front, and new galley appliances, matresses, curtains and stuff, so it looks beautiful. He and my other brother inlaw then paint the boat, new copper bottom paint and refinish some of the mahogany.
Then to the boatyard for an engine cleanup and check. By now, an additional $3000...
A week later, the maiden voyage... out of the boatyard slip in Warwick (with help) and out into the bay for the trial run around Prudence Island. Or at least halfway around. Stopped to fish, and the boat woudn't restart. Towed back to the harbor... Diagnosis... starter engine failure... rusted and burned out. Now, for those who haven't been there, the starter motor on this boat is under the engine, and there is no access except to drydock the boat, remove floorboards, and other built in stuff... and to use a crane to lift the engine out of the boat for repair. In the process, broke one of the new windows. A weeks work, and another $2000 later... (and total cruising time of 1/2 hour under power)... and all's well and ready to go again.
Family and friends... two weekends out for trips around the bay, and Jack is in boater heaven... beautiful boat... captain and owner of a full fledged yacht. Life doesn't get any better than this.
Back up a bit... When the boat was in Jacks yard, and they were painting, they found this four inch patch of metal screwed to the outside bottom of the boat. All corroded and looking messy. Ground off the corrosion and put several coats of paint on top of the plate. Now, unless you're a power boater, you may not know that the boat needs a ground... actually a ground to the water. That's a sacrificial metal plate.
Jack goes away for two weeks, and on return there's a message, to call the boat yard... "Hello... Jack?... Your boat just sank at the slip... sitting on the bottom. What do you want us to do?" When the sacrificial zinc plate didn't ground the boat, the screws holding it in got rusty and the plate which was part of a hull plug, had disintegrated and opened a hole in the bottom.
Jack didn't give up easily... long and short... had the boat hauled out, engine removed and overhauled, all new upholstery, new everything... costing about $4,000... and went on to:
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Selling the boat for $5,000. We figured that his great buy cost about $1500 an hour for the time he used the boat. A perfect example of the saying that 'the first day when you purchase a boat, is the second happiest day of your life'.
As I recall, the boat was a 25 foot Chris Craft Cavalier like this.
