How about this trailer for $322.50????

[JimR]

I bought these on Ebay today. The boat is 24 feet long and needs to be restored. I bought it for the trailer which is in pretty decent shape. The trailer is a flatbed design with built up bunks to hold the boat. The boat was free. I lucked out with it being only 4 miles from my house. Now to see if the guy follows thru with the auction. I did pay only $322.50 for the works. The boat has a V8 with the outdrive. It did run when parked quite a few years ago. My plan is to sell the boat to pay for the trailer. The end result will be a free trailer.

 

[Skitch]

Heck of an idea. What kind of work is needed on the trailer to get it the way you want it?

 

[JimR]

The trailer is already a flatbed design. I may shorten it up a little. Brakes will be added to it also. I will need to either put on a steel bed or boards for the top. The rest is pretty much done. I will link the axle springs together and put on nicer fenders. I couldn't resist the auction knowing that it was so close to home. Plus I got to go check it out before it ended.

 

[JimR]

The trailer/boat deal is a go. The seller called me tonight and I will have the papers on it tomorrow night. My first project will be to install a braking system on the trailer and to put the boat up on stands till I can figure out what to do with it.

 

[TOMDUALLY]

Looks like a great deal the whole works for the price of a couple axles /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Sure you don't want to fishing a couple times before you sell the boat /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[GerardC]

Good deal. Wish I could come across a deal like that. Keep us updated (with photos). G

 

[JimR]

The boat and trailer came home this morning. I towed it home (4 miles) using my Chevy S-10 Blazer. I didn't know if my little truck would handle it. I had no problems getting the boat moving. Stopping had to calculated in advance. I have no trailer brakes yet. I did pick it up at 7am knowing that there would be no traffic in town to deal with. The fun came around 8am when my wife, daughter and I were going out for breakfast. I stopped by our farm next door to show them my trailer that I bought. The both of them almost flipped at the size of the boat on it. Now the wife is talking about me fixing it up and keeping it down at the ocean. I told her that I already have enough projects and a boat is not one fo them in the near future.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( . . . Now the wife is talking about me fixing it up and keeping it down at the ocean. . . .)</font>

Boat: A hole in the water into which you pour money.

Very accurate definition.
Cliff

 

[JimR]

That is not true if you take care of your boat and do your own work. My first boat I sold for $200.00 less than I paid for it 6 years earlier. My last boat I made $1500.00 on it after using it for 5 years. Upkeep was next to nill on both of them other than trailer bearings and repaired props.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Well, you've led a charmed life if you never had to repair sails, or replace rigging, or buy fuel, or pay docking fees, or paint the boat, or repair rot or bad scrapes, or buy any electronic upgrades, or pay license fees, or do oil changes (if you have an engine), or replace the fluid in a compass or two, or buy a new radar antennna because someone stole yours, or pay land storage fees during the winter, or buy a new bilge pump (preferably before the boat sinks one night), or lost an anchor to some snag, or bought new anchor rope (seven years is a very long time for one anchor rope) or replaced mufflers, or replaced bent booms or a torn spiniker, or had to refiberglass sections so you could reattach new handrails because the old ones get rickety. I could go on and on. One of the reasons the quote is so accurate is that many of the costs are not that great, but there are many.

If you use a boat much, the costs add up very fast. As I said, you may have led a charmed boating life. -- Or you stick to day trips on pretty new boats, which the boat on this trailer is very much not.

Cliff

 

[fishman]

Oh, Cliff, you are soooo right. Preach it Brother! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[JimR]

I never had the wants for a sailboat. I prefer powered boats and getting from point A to point B fast. Oil changes are a normal maintainance item for any boater. I always had pretty nice boats. That was why I didn't sink money into a pit. I did however add fishfinders to both boats. My second boat I bought with a cracked block. I paid $3000.00 for it. Put $1500.00 more into it. I used it for 5 years and sold it for $6K. That was a worthwhile investment. I am a day tripper and the boats always were stored in a garage, heated during the off season. They were used during the week and almost every weekend for tubing and skiing during the summer. Both of them even made it to the ocean for fishing and fun in the sun at least 5-6 times during the summer. This boat would be a different story. I plan on dumping it regardless of what the wife wants to do with it. If she wants a bigger boat I will find a way to get a much newer one. It would cost me about 3K to make this one water ready. It is still cheap considering the boat was free. I just have too many projects right now to be messing with this one.

 

[mrcaptainbob]

Jeezzz!!! Except for the bilge pump and sails, sounds like your describing one of my tractors!

 

[SPIKER]

Capt BOB:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN!??? NO bilge pump on the tractor or SAILS? heck how do you keep it afloat then!? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

ok just funning ya.

SPIKER
/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bobodu]

Sold the sailboats and made enough profit to buy the speedboat.Problem around here is enough water to open it up for more than a three minute run.Now...if I were to take it out of what was my bean field and put it in a lake......