Another newbie member

[svQuest]

Ha... I certainly know the 'back' issues. As I'm growing older (but not up), it's more effort to do things. Plan early....

As for the sailing, we won't give that up. We actively race about 50x a year (currently winning our Wed night 6 month series). But there are a number of times that we just want to go drop a boat in the water and have a fun day. To do that with a racing sailboat is like saying 'Honey, let's take the NASCAR out for a Sunday drive', it's just too much work.

So to that end I picked up a 1990 Pro Line 20' CC with a 1.4L OMC Sea Drive (let's see how many folks know that one) and restored it. But it's just not big enough or enough HP to do what we want. We'll sell it, use the money and a friend of mine and I will rebuild this one. I've already shown him the site and after reading about the pouring a solid transom, we were both like, 'wow, that makes it easy' as we've rebuild a couple with wood and were planning on doing this one that way already.

I used to own a Canvas Shop, a Sail Loft and a bottom cleaning service (for boats stored in the water), so working on the boat itself isn't a big deal. Plus I'm saving her from the scrap heap.

I'll probably be asking many, many questions of folks as I go and I'll post pics of the project soon. I'll even start with a set of befores and we'll go from there.

As for the engine, I live on the Gulf Coast (near Galveston) and the motors not frozen and turns well by hand with compression being felt. Yeah, it needs a new starter but we almost got her fired up today. I think new plugs and we'll have the engine running (then we'll mothball it for the restoration).

Thanks again, looking forward to getting her back on the water