So, yesterday morning I left home about 5am, drove about 300 miles, picked up a boat and towed it home. No drama other than I pulled the boat about 15 miles from the storage location to my friend's house with no lights. We needed to 5 flat to round converter that we left behind. The weather was nice and the traffic wasn't bad, so I made the call to go back to his house with no brake lights or turn signals on the trailer.

Here is a picture from somewhere in NC (Winterville) where I stopped for a bite to eat on the way back.

Here is the boat in my driveway where it will sit for a little while until I get a new battery and a new prop.

I also managed to pick up a set of 5 10" Mini wheels from a different friend to deliver to a local guy who needs them for his Moke restoration.

The boat will go on my up till now unused boat lift. Here's the best part. The boat still belongs to my friends. They will still pay the registration and insurance. I am simply storing it for them with the storage fee being free use of the boat on my part. I am out my gas money, the cost of a new battery and prop and whatever else I need to fix/replace to get and keep the boat running.

The boat is a 2003 Caravelle Interceptor 212 with a 225Hp 5.0L V-8. It was winterized and shrink wrapped 7 years ago and stayed that way until a couple weeks ago. The trailer got 4 new tires, new bearings, new surge brake, and new wiring for the trip down here - that was my only request for taking the boat off his hands is that he make sure the trailer was road worthy and I would take care of the boat. They took it to a boat guy who winterized it, and he actually ran the engine. Ran it with the 7 year old gas and it supposedly ran fine.

I need to do a little maintenance on my boat lift and will hopefully get the boat in the water in the next week or so.

Here's a shot of the 5 wheels I brought home. They are steelies that have been powdercoated. I would love see them on my Mini, but, I have a new boat project to mess with. The Mini can wait.

boats are slowly taking over GRM

Removed the prop and battery yesterday. Will go out and get a new battery today and will see if a local place has a prop replacement in stock.

The prop that was on there (a three bladed aluminum one) had chewed its way into something so that all three blade tips were missing. Since this is not my boat, I am not going to spring for the extra money for a stainless steel prop, but will just replace it with what was there. Hoping to get the boat in the water this weekend. We'll see how it goes.

aluminum is better if you live and boat in an area where you will hit stuff. It bends and breaks easier, so less damage to the drive

mad_machine wrote: boats are slowly taking over GRM

Time for another sub forum!

Grassrootsboatersports

holeinthewater

Check around for places that repair props. They can replace almost a whole blade, reset the pitch, and balance for probably half the cost of new.

I would still buy a new prop, but have the old one repaired to have a spare on board.

Good tip - thanks. I will get a new one and get the existing one repaired.

jstand wrote: Check around for places that repair props. They can replace almost a whole blade, reset the pitch, and balance for probably half the cost of new. I would still buy a new prop, but have the old one repaired to have a spare on board.

I have actually watched them do this. Takes some mad welding skills; they pretty much knit a new blade on the stump of the broken one.

yea.. props are very cool. There is both a real science and a real artistry to building and repairing them. I am not going to get into feathering and folding props.. those are a whole other level of complexity and engineering

Got the new prop today. Ran the engine a bit in the driveway yesterday. Started right up. After a couple minutes of warm up, it idled just fine, but seemed to bog down and stall when I gave it any throttle. Either the gas gauge is broken or the tank is right at empty. Going to fill it up and try some Seafoam in her. Not going to try to put her in the water until I can get the engine running right.

The place I went didn't think they could repair the prop, so I took it back home with its three missing blade tips. I may try to take to a different place at some point so I have a spare.

Nice looking boat! Is this a Mercruiser? My uncle has a Century Arrow that is a similar style craft.

With an I/O that's sat that many years unused, I hope you can still pull good compression. My old Glastron/Carlson sat unused for 5 years and I had two of the intake valves rust so much they wouldn't budge.

my only concern with an I/O check that -huge- gasket where it passes through the hull. Not a hard job to replace out of the water (you can remove the outdrive) but will ruin your day out in the water if it springs a leak

First rule of owning a boat: Don't! Find someone with a boat and make friends with him.

Well done sir.

Hungary Bill wrote: First rule of owning a boat: Don't! Find someone with a boat and make friends with him. Well done sir.

Usage for the cost of maintenance. Better than owning, but still ptential for wallet pain.

I put her in the water Saturday. My first time launching a boat off a trailer since the late 80's and the first time I've ever done it solo. The process went well and had no issues. I made sure to go early before the Saturday morning frenzy started. There are only two public boat ramps on the island. I was going to go to the less popular one, but after I did some recon Friday and realized how narrow, steep and crappy the ramps were plus that there is no real dock to tie the boat off to while I park the van and trailer, I went to the other ramp. The ramps are wider and the floating dock seemed like a better bet for a place to moor the boat while I parked. The only downside is that this one is adjacent to a Marina with an attached store and restaurant. I knew I'd have some spectators and was hoping to not provide too much entertainment for them.

From the launch site to my house by water is only about 2 1/2 miles. I paddle boarded farther than that. Got the boat to the house and had the wife out there to assist with getting the boat on the lift. This is something I had never done before. Based on my measurements of the boat on the trailer and the bunks on the lift, everything seemed like it would work out ok. It was about two hours after low tide so there was a decent cross current while trying to line up on the lift. After some struggles and me being unsure on how deep the lift needed to be to not hit the bow on the cross beam, I got her on the lift. Needed the help of my neighbor who put on her swim suit and stood on the lift.

Ended up taking on and off the lift 4 or 5 more times that day to get the hang of it. Put a few hours on the engine and got her up to speed. Even took the boat to Holden Beach for some take out dinner that I took back home for a picnic on the dock.

Went out some more on Sunday. So far the only things I need to sort out is the tach and the speedo. Neither work. The tach has an hour meter in it and that does work. How many 2002 boats have only 31 hours? (It's up to 39 or so now.)

I'll have to check the pitot tube on the outdrive to see if it is clogged. Hoping the speedo is an easy fix. The tach seems to be a trouble spot on these boats - that one may be trickier to fix.

Oh, and as for the big gasket, I blasted the area with a hose with the boat on the trailer and couldn't get any water to leak in, so I decided I'd put her in the water and see how it went without changing it out. It is water tight.

drainoil wrote: Nice looking boat! Is this a Mercruiser?

Yes it's a Mercruiser 5.0L with a carb. 220 Hp. Alpha One sterndrive. I didn't check compression, but I don't think there are any issues based on the performance. I'll run for a bit and see how it goes.

Cool!

Any photos of the neighbor?

In reply to Woody:

Nope.

mad_machine wrote: my only concern with an I/O check that -huge- gasket where it passes through the hull. Not a hard job to replace out of the water (you can remove the outdrive) but will ruin your day out in the water if it springs a leak

Only OMC's have the huge rubber gasket.

Mercruiser's need to have the rubber boots checked and they have a conventional gasket between the transom mount and the outdrive, but I have had a few of those and never had a leak. I had a 30 year-old boat and it didn't leak there. I did get a torn boot though. They are a bugger to fix.