In reply to frenchyd :
Course I had to look it up. I will take ine with the optional hardtop. Cause chicks dont like to muss their hair.
In reply to frenchyd :
Course I had to look it up. I will take ine with the optional hardtop. Cause chicks dont like to muss their hair.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Cretin! 
That smaller hull would make a great flats boat if one had the skills. But yeah, they’re never free.
NOHOME said:In reply to frenchyd :
Course I had to look it up. I will take ine with the optional hardtop. Cause chicks dont like to muss their hair.
I never knew they had an optional top. I learned something today. Thank you.
Have you ever heard a Chris Craft ? They have an exhaust note that is pure music to me. I don't care if it's the Hercules KBL ( a Flathead head 6 cylinder with 3 down draft carburators and really wild camshaft ) Or the Chrysler Hemi / Cadillac with two 4 barrel carbs ( back in 1955 ). Whatever engine, those big brass exhaust pipes burbling and spitting just above the waterline. Until the throttle is shoved forward and a really deep mellow roar comes out. Telling all within earshot a serious boat is doing really serious things.
In the late 50's my uncle salvaged a sunken Chris Craft cruiser with 3 Packard V12's in it. You should hear the roar those made. 36 cylinders something like 5000 cu inches just wolfing down premium. Made that big heavy cruiser just fly.
Free boats: One man's junk is another mans's huge project.
I'm still interested in a small fiberglass boat to use as a base to make a solo skiff out of. I've been debating just getting some foam and making a buck.
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) :
That's typically my approach. Spend some time making the pattern and you'll get exactly what you want rather than making do with something less
frenchyd said:NOHOME said:In reply to frenchyd :
not me. Curtis has the sawzall
OK, Thanks for clarification. You're back alive. Sorry Curtis now you're dead to me. I really regret your passing. You seemed like such a nice guy.
Haaa.... you can write my eulogy.
frenchyd said:OK so you don't like runabouts. To each his own. But please don't ever destroy something just because you can.. While you have the right to the question is should you? Or should you sell/give it to someone who appreciates it?
I go back and forth on that. I don't like hacking big-dollar classics, but I've done it. My problem is that for the last 8 or so years I've been looking for a properly stable, high performance hull that I can actually use. In the car world, it's easy. You want to go fast, but need a truck to haul a pallet of something? Find a Syclone or slap a turbo on an S10, or buy a lightning and throw some suspension parts at it. Want to have a DD that doubles as an autocrosser? Get a Miata. In the boat world, you don't really get that. Sure, I can get a heavy fish n ski if I don't mind it weighing psychotically heavy and needing 300 hp to get the speed I want. Sure, I can get an I/O and stuff a huge V8 in it if I don't want to turn and don't mind never seeing the shallow fishing holes I like ever again. About the only bowrider I ever found that fits the bill is a Hyrdrostream, but they dissolve faster than a sugar cube and cost three arms and six legs..
So I'm down to hacking something with a worthy hull.
But relax.... I'm also SUPER cheapskate. I can't afford a decent Donzi, so I'd have to find one that split in half before I could afford it, so you see... I'm actually rescuing it.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
I'm talking to a ghost? Ah well I suppose I've done worse things.
Fast hulls sit on top of the water not carve through it. A three point hydro for example flies on top of water. It is not stable or comfortable. Nor does it give you the same feeling a runabout will. A runabout has a ride, a sense of security you'll never get with a 3 point hydro.
Because of the added weight forward to provide lift and stability an open bow boat tends to be much wider forward. Hydrodynamic-ally a Tri hull may almost just as well be a blunt bow. However that won't sell so they want you to think it's some sort of catamaran with 3 hulls instead of just two.
So to achieve what you want you'll need to trade something to get it. Want speed? A runabout will be faster than an open bow. Want stability in an open bow? Give up speed or add a lot more power.
In reply to frenchyd :
Yup. Totally aware of those things, but there are plenty of fast hulls that aren't cats or flat bottoms. One of the fastest (in terms of mph/hp) boats I ever owned was a tri-hull because it was basically a flat-bottom for the back 10'. I could easily make 40 mph with 70 hp and only drafted about 6" at rest. Totally punishing in more than an 8" chop, but fast. The problem for me is that after a decade of research, I have found none that come in topside configurations that suit my boat usage... at least not for a po boy like me.
The closest thing to what I need is a bass boat hull in the fish n ski layout, but because they are marketed to the masses (including inexperienced boaters) they are all equipped with a nanny in the form of their weight and aft deadrise. What I really want is a pad-vee. I've had a couple and they were perfect in terms of the performance... but none had a topside layout that came vaguely close to something useful for me.
When I bought my Chris Craft like above I paid $300 for it with an engine with 2 holes in the block. No varnish, all the chrome trim off, no windshield etc. most would have assigned it to the scrap heap.
Today a nice one will sell for as much as $65,000. So they shouldn't be considered a candidate to be cut up.
They are really sweet.
When I lived in L.A. there were constantly free wooden boats on CL. And I'm not talking about a 19' derelict, I'm talking about 65' mahogany Chris Craft yachts with galleys, heads, well-maintained brightwork, already afloat, usually without functioning engines. People bought them and parked them in a slip to be their residence back when it was financially feasible to do it. They were protected by laws that controlled their rent. Then they died leaving their heirs without that rent protection and suddenly the kids had this boat that was going to cost them $15k/mo to keep.
Most of them had liens put on them and abandoned because no one could accept a free boat that required $30k worth of transport, storage, wide load permits, highway escorts, massive cranes to move them, etc. Harbors tried auctioning them, giving them away, anything. Many of them developed leaks and sank still tied to the docks. Sad to see them just rot away.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
The West coast was worse than the east coast but it's quickly catch up. That's why Boneyard boats still get plenty of free wooden boats. The trick with boneyard boats is to call whoever's place they are stored at and explain you're going to pick up the freebie and ask when is a good time.
That's when they try to dump the storage fee on it and you explain you can't afford to pay for the hauling and storage fees so you'll just have to let it sit. Things get a lot more friendly after that.
But I'm constantly amazed at the quality of boats being offered. More than a few aren't that far from usable. A guy I know got an older big Chris Craft free that had some dry rot in the keel a few ribs and planks. He sand blasted the soft wood away, carved replacement parts and then laid the boat on it's side. A few stainless screws held everything together and then he put fiberglass cloth on 3 layers thick over the whole bottom right up to the water line. Soaked them with resin and squeegeed the excess out.
a week later he rolled it over to a sand bed on the other side and repeated it.
The engines were replaced with a pair of marinized diesels. He rented out his house and is now cruising full time. He said it costs him around a $1000 a month cruising and double that if tied up or anchored in port.
I tried looking up Bone Yard Boats online, but the newest stuff on the website is 3 years old, and the last post on the FB page is 2 years old. Am I missing a link to the newer stuff, or a forum or something?
To get current stuff you need to give them a subscription. But often enough stuff 2-3 years old is still available. Edit; I just check. Seems like bone yard boats is no longer publishing.
In reply to lisandro :
That picture doesn't show the size. It's 21 feet long and over 7 feet wide.
Why are all these free boats missing a trailer. Is there a big demand out there for boatless boat trailers? I see the same thing with engineless pickup trucks on Craigslist.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
The boat atrophies, but trailers are easily salvageable for not much money. People unload the boat and sell the trailer. Where I spend the summers in Canada (known as the Land o' Lakes region for all of the lakes) there are fields full of boats with no trailers.
In hindsight, I should have made the trip out to MO and picked up that little flat one.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
The boat atrophies, but trailers are easily salvageable for not much money. People unload the boat and sell the trailer. Where I spend the summers in Canada (known as the Land o' Lakes region for all of the lakes) there are fields full of boats with no trailers.
In hindsight, I should have made the trip out to MO and picked up that little flat one.
What gets me are the guys who sell the trailer then whine because nobody wants to come and haul off the trailerless boat. If they are ok with the thing deteriorating in their back 40, that's fine, but they actually expect somebody to haul it off without payment? Just like the guys on Craigslist who insist that their F150 missing a motor and the hood tossed into the bed still being worth $1,000. It's not.
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