The Parts Boat: A Neccessary Digression

At some point soonish after the engine was in, my friend Rob and I purchased another boat. It was another bargain from the trade and exchange, with a vague description and an uncontactable owner. However she did specify it was in storage and in what suburb, and after narrowing down the options we found it.

The operator of the storage place explained that she owed over $1000 in storage fees and that it was being sold to recoup those funds, as such he had the authority to sell it to us. It was a Pelin hull with a disgusting centre console, rotten and missing sheets of plywood, on a rusted trailer with both tyres completely flat. Naturally we bought it the next day!

It had a bunch of good deck fittings, a large outboard motor, remotes and steering, lots of carpeted plywood in the cockpit, plus lights and handy bits of stainless for other stuff. We'd offered the guy $200 and then were surprised and alarmed when he accepted, but we hid it well and set to work the next day.

My pal Jack and I headed out there in my Bedford van and started stripping it. With no means of lifting the outboard off, we needed an innovative solution. We failed to come up with one, so instead we backed up the van to the motor and cut the transom off with an axe, then pulled it in with ropes. Both of us narrowly avoided losing fingers, but in the end we escaped with mild depression and backache, so we'll consider that a victory!

The plan was to dump the boat and drive the trailer home, but after 9 seconds on the road it became clear that it wasn't going to happen. We unhitched the boat by the dump and left a note written in my then-girlfriend's eyebrow pencil- that we were sorry and would be back the next day.

Sadly, our consciences got the better off us and we did go back the next day, feeling increasingly like we were part of some kind of Truman show-esque re-enactment of the Paddington bear stories. We grabbed a few more things, and rolled on up to the dump, with one tyre now half-off the rim, making every revolution a time of jolting sadness. It was $200 to dump, which was a kick in the balls, especially as we saw a metal salvage place 100m up the road which would have saved us half the dump fee and given us scrap money, which might have been enough to buy us a well-earned Popsicle each and a small bag of chips to share. But alas, such is the life of a mariner!

The sale of the unwanted parts proved surprisingly profitable, on top of which I got a bunch of great stuff for my boat, including:

A bow rail, anchor bollard, cleats, fairlead, nav lights, stern light, a sheet and a bit of carpeted plywood, lots of stainless crews, bolts and coachscrews, some rope, and an absolutely massive tarpaulin. Woo!

I painted the deck with grip paint and fitted the bow rail and anchor-y stuff, seen here looking sexy!

The bow rail took a lot of un-bending and re-bending to fit. Since I chose to do this over the top of a low wall it also involved a lot of risk to personal safety, but after fitting it was all worth it! One of my buddies couldn't see why I'd go to the trouble of changing it when it vaguely fitted before. I believe however, that it is small details that complement the intrinsic beauty of something like this boat that make all the difference.

What I disliked about the rail at first, was that its foremost point was 6 inches behind the tip of the foredeck. I wanted its foremost point to be where a line extended up along the stem would end, IE in front of the tip of the foredeck. I've since noticed that handsome bowrails always follow this line, its part of what makes the bow of a boat look majestic and defiant and sleek and sexy. All I knew upon first trying on the rail (pre-modification) was that it looked wrong, and that Neptune would exact his wrath not just on me, but the entire human race if I didn't fix it immediately. Thank goodness I did eh!