Free boat !

     So I'm hanging out with a friend a few weekends ago after wakeboarding.His fiance's dad is B.S.ing with us in the yard and he starts telling us about his old ski boat he has stored up the street in a barn.Hmmmm....so we start to quiz him about it and he says it was a recovered theft he bought cheap,fixed and used for a few years.Apparently it was stored and forgotten about for 8-9 years.I remember seeing him driving the boat on the lake many years ago but kind of forgot about it,and my buddy knew it was around somewhere,but never thought much about it. His future father in law then tells him "If you want it...you can have it.....FREE".Well,he went and dug it out of the barn,towed it home and I stopped by to see it last weekend.It's a 1981 SkiNautique!
   He pulled the tank out,drained the old gas(gas tank was spotless inside)reinstalled w/some fresh gas,threw a battery in it and within a few hours it was running. We dropped it in the lake Saturday and took a spin. Had to adjust the packing nuts,file the points and put a new bilge float in it.RWP impellar even looked good.
    Overall it's in really good shape,cosmetically it's an old boat,but it's all there(with the exception of the shift knob).252 hours on the clock(didn't think to check if it was working).It does'nt appear to be charging as it didn't take long for the battery to go dead.All of the underwater gear is basically new and the engine ran strong for a while,but the battery started losing juice and the ignition began acting up.I will try to post a few pics when I get back from camping next week and probably will have some questions as it should be tuned up and he's thinking of maybe going electronic ignition while we're in there,and obviously the charging system will need to be addressed.He wants to take care of the basics now and run it for the rest of the season,then maybe give it a good going through this winter.Overall a pretty darn good deal.


    Mike

I found a penny today in the parking lot, but I've not yet found a free boat--congrats Mike.

Chuck

Dude, just barely

Chuck