dpb
Well-known member
In 1991 I bought my first ‘proper’ (to me) boat.
This boat:
Thats me in it, early 90’s off Herne Bay Pier.
We sold it in 96 to move on to a bigger Sportscruiser. By which time we had used it along the Kent Coast between Maidstone (on the River Medway) and Deal, as well as taking it to Lake Annecy in France and Lake Como in Italy.
Fast forward to June 21 when looking casually for a project to follow the motorcycle I had just completed, I stumbled upon what looked like the above mentioned boat on Ebay.
From the pics in the advert we were able to identify it as our actual old boat so went ahead and bought it.
When we arrived to pick it up from Cardiff, I quickly realised that it was still on its original trailer (30 years after I first saw it and it was not new then!). The boat was stored on a steep slope bow down with 2ft of water in the bow. The batteries were flat so we couldn’t raise the leg and bits of the engine were missing.
Took us 2 hours to be ready to tow but we got there. The tyres were newish and we took the hubs off to check the bearings and they looked ok. Got what we could of the water out, hooked up and set off for home in Bournemouth.
And made it with out any issues at all!
On inspection I found that whilst the hull was in excellent condition, the internal wood work was not. ‘Tide’ marks showed that the boat had been full of water for some time but due to the slope it was stored on, the engine was saved from immersion.
So I set about removing that which was rotten.
That turned out to be pretty much all of it.
Including the transom.
Continued as picture limit reached!
This boat:
Thats me in it, early 90’s off Herne Bay Pier.
We sold it in 96 to move on to a bigger Sportscruiser. By which time we had used it along the Kent Coast between Maidstone (on the River Medway) and Deal, as well as taking it to Lake Annecy in France and Lake Como in Italy.
Fast forward to June 21 when looking casually for a project to follow the motorcycle I had just completed, I stumbled upon what looked like the above mentioned boat on Ebay.
From the pics in the advert we were able to identify it as our actual old boat so went ahead and bought it.
When we arrived to pick it up from Cardiff, I quickly realised that it was still on its original trailer (30 years after I first saw it and it was not new then!). The boat was stored on a steep slope bow down with 2ft of water in the bow. The batteries were flat so we couldn’t raise the leg and bits of the engine were missing.
Took us 2 hours to be ready to tow but we got there. The tyres were newish and we took the hubs off to check the bearings and they looked ok. Got what we could of the water out, hooked up and set off for home in Bournemouth.
And made it with out any issues at all!
On inspection I found that whilst the hull was in excellent condition, the internal wood work was not. ‘Tide’ marks showed that the boat had been full of water for some time but due to the slope it was stored on, the engine was saved from immersion.
So I set about removing that which was rotten.
That turned out to be pretty much all of it.
Including the transom.
Continued as picture limit reached!
(although not always happy memories 
)
