New toy!

[kamzcab86]

So, I mentioned in another thread that I bought a new toy. It's not a Volkswagen... heck, it's not even a car!

It's a...




















...14-foot pontoon boat! I live in a lake community (water is reclaimed... mmmmmm, sewer water!) and happened upon this one by chance. Although 90% of the boats in this community are NEVER used, no one wants to sell them!! So, when I came upon this one on Craigslist in a WTB listing(!, owner wants to upgrade to a bigger boat), I jumped at the chance.

The floor is shot and needs to be replaced (as you can see the first owner did a lazy, half-ass carpet replacement; thanks to that and the second owner never using the boat cover, the wood deck is all but rotted out)... that's going to be the only challenging part 'cuz the boat has no trailer. The tops of the seat backs are cracked to hell, so a re-upholstery job is in the future as well. It'll also be getting new panel striping.

Spent most of the weekend just cleaning the poor thing up. Spiders moved into the storage spaces beneath the seats many years ago and no one bothered to ever kick 'em out. And, I tell ya, Mr. Clean really is the man:

(cleaned-up on the left, filth on the right).

Also made a couple of repairs: the electric motor auto-tilt wasn't working (PO removed the tilt mechanism altogether; hooked it up and works fine! ) and the port (left) running light wasn't working (PO thought it was a blown bulb, but it was actually dirt, poor wiring and a bad ground). The front seat covers were in shreds; mended them until new covers are made.

I'll take a pic sometime this week with all of the covers off and will update as I make progress.

[bbrown]

mmm Party boat (that's what we always called pontoon boats). I don't think any water skiing will be going on behind that boat, but reclaimed water isn't the best swimming water anyways . So is the boat propelled by an electric motor or does it have a small outboard? Those Mr. Clean scrubs work wonders on almost everything and your boat cleans up pretty well. My family is needing to re-upholsterer our Bayliner bass boat and new flooring isn't too far away either. Man I miss warm weather and cruising around the lake

[Calimus]

Congratz kamy. I've been told the two happiest days of your life are the day you buy your first boat, and the day you sell it.

But seriously, very cool. My parents have a 20' pontoon boat that hasn't seen the water in prollie 10 years and I bet my old man wouldn't sell it either. Don't know what the hell is it with boat ppl

[kamzcab86]

The only one water skiing behind this boat would be a squirrel. It's powered by an electric motor; no gas-powered motors allowed.

Of course, a week after buying this new toy, I find out my department is going bye-bye (absolutely no warning whatsoever) in a few months and, therefore, possibly my job too.

[bbrown]

That's terrible . I hope you can save your job.

What kind of range do you suspect you can get on the electirc motor? We use one for trolling on our bass boat and we have it set to its own battery, but I don't think we could motor around the lake for too long before it had sucked the battery dry. I guess if you had a few marine batteries on board the boat you could put around for quite some time. Nice thing about no gas motors is the peace and quite (I love jet skies, but they are so annoyingly loud when you're not the one operating them). Once again I hope you can stay employed especially during these trying times.

[Calimus]

That does suck Kammy. I'm in the same boat (no pun intended really) though we have advanced warning. In my case, the entire site is shutting down somewhere between now and March/April of next year.

Wish you the best of luck in staying with the company or finding something else real quick.

[kamzcab86]

It's a 24-volt motor, which means it requires two deep-cycle batteries to run. It can run at 3/4 power for about 2 hours and still have some juice left, but I've not checked to see how much. I've got a trolling motor and regular battery for my little pedal boat (got the pontoon boat so more guests can go boating; the pedal boat holds only 2 at a time); it runs at high speed for about an hour then runs out of steam. If it were to run at a lower speed, it'd last for a couple of hours at least.

As for the job, an official announcement will be made by mid-April, but it's pretty much a given, based on the two emails I've received, that after 10 years it's now going away. Even government jobs aren't safe in today's economy. Time to hit the classifieds... and go back to school. Unless Obama decides to bail out a worthy industry - education - rather than bailing out all of these corporations with greedy CEOs.

Edit: Just got my 60-day layoff notice.

[Briano1234]

Sorry to hear that Kammy. My Job too has been on the choping block for about 3 years and I have escaped the axe so far.

[Calimus]

Must be the Luck - O - The Irish I tell ya Brian

[sixsracing]

Congrats on the boat Kammy, I have never owned one but have worked on many, probably why I've never owned one.

Sorry to hear about your job though, it's one of the reasons I went out on my own 3 years ago. Tired of getting laid off, fired or whatever.

[CalAltaDubber]

Hey Kammi

Nice boat.

Sucks about the job though.

Same problems up here too. Things are not rosy around the company I work for either.

[kamzcab86]

Thanks, guys! My layoff day was capped off by coming home at 10pm to find the boat gone... the springs I attached to the chain broke in the 30mph winds that blew. Thankfully, some neighbors caught it and tied it up so it wouldn't go any farther.

Until May 26th, I'll be *cough, cough* sick every Friday , so this weekend I'll get started on removing the old stripes.

As for the layoff, I've wanted to leave this job for the past few years, so this just gives me the push to do it... I just wanted to leave on my terms, so-to-speak.

[Calimus]

Still sucks, but I can't blame ya for being "sick" so often. Glad to hear the boat is ok. Enjoy it!

[kamzcab86]

Stripes are still to come, but in the meantime, I made new seat covers, and altered the captain's stand cover so it fits and installs properly (PO went nuts with scissors and cheap/crappy snaps ):



...and, thanks to a new tool (heat gun!), I removed the "Desert Sports Center" decals on the front (see pic above) and on the back:





Next up is to remove the side stripes, clean the aluminum, and polish up the panels (major oxidation!!).

Went for a moonlit boat ride Tuesday at 10:30pm... so fun!!

[sixsracing]

Looking good Kammie. Do you think it's a coincidence that self-promoting stickers and decals
that businesses put on merchandise other people purchase are "tacky".