Another 18 Sportsman On Ebay. BUT!
Very nice!
The “BUT” is a big Bertha Butt Boogie But BTW! Now, first know that we here at Woody Boater are HUGE fans of the 18 Sportsman, and just a month ago featured a dream restoration one which sold for close to 7K with an original trailer and ALL its history from the original one owner. And there are others out there for sale is all various forms of condition. But this one was worth featuring, since, well, she, well. Sunk!
OK, now in any other passion this sort of thing would be a death sentence. But in our little corner of the lake, its OK. This boat will need a complete restoration, don’t fool yourself. It’s trashed and that is that. Sure the engine may run, so try that, but the bottom is beyond shot and well, while you are at it.Yada Yada.
She is dried out
Its all there we think?
BUT, again a BUT. Who cares if you are going to redo it. Its an 18 Sportsman and for the right price, and if you do it yourself you wont get soaked.
A better time. On top of the water!
WOW – it has the VERY RARE “Hercules 5 Cylinder Tank Engine”
If the yard did not know how to “soak up” a wood boat do you really think they know how to pickle an engine properly? On the other hand maybe they have done it many times since they don’t know what a hose is used for.
Can you say Free to a Good Home?
Very rare Tank engine, I missed that. HA.
I have never seen a 5 cylinder Herc.
Just in time to buy it and pick it up on the way back from Tavares.
Jim we could look at it while in Jacksonville before the cruise.
I know a good tavern on the ICW in Atlantic Beach. Maybe they were trying to swell the deck seams!
There is nothing more painful to look at than a sunk boat!
A mere distracting circumstance
There’s just no excuse for letting her sink. What is the excuse? You’d think at launch if water was squirting in all over the place they’d haul her out, soak in slings, are at least keep it pumped until it swelled. There’s gotta be more to the story.
I’ll bet Guy Marvin, Gerald Dake, Bill Hancock and Alan ( cousin) Wright get together and figure out how to buy it and donate it to the Jacksonville school that helps kids learn to build and rebuild wooden boats
They should list it as a rare Chris Craft submarine.
Capt. Kelly says it ain’t no thing. “Nothing wrong with that boat but the bottom. Someone should grab it.”, he says.
Someone else.
good laughs all….but that boat has potential at the price…but I agree there must be more bad history behind this???
Still, we have all seen worse looking boats sold for more $ and they didn’t get a total immersion wash job as prep. Bet there was no rat poop either….one of you stalwarts should step up and take on this project. Just not me…..
John in Va.
At least the hula girl on the dash didn’t have to go swimming 🙂
Denis D
…..and of course, this being FL, and wanting to protect it from further damage, they put the boat cover on & covered it with a tarp too! What could go wrong?
If you zoom in on the bottom of the transom on the picture where its on the bunks being pumped out you’ll see water streaming out of the transom to bottom plank seam. Now you’ll understand why it sank. That’s not really a “swellable” seam joint per se.
That could have also been compromised by pulling it out of the water with the Bull while it was full of water rather than pumping it out as they lifted her out of the water.
Another item to notice – the bottom was repainted blue and the waterline stripe was repainted gold prior to sinking. No where during the repainting process did anyone realize more was needed than just paint?
and…that is your garden variety Herc SIX….I don’t know about any tanks, but it made a lot of fork lifts!!!
Still that boat has a future…..
John in Va.
I’m with John.
Could be a great boat for a great price.
Restore it and GO BOATING!
I had a feeling this might be the fate of this Sportsman when I delivered her to Jacksonville 3 years ago
Gil, what kind of shape was it in then?
John in Va.
WENT boating today…..
John she was a nice original boat, needed new bottom but very usable 3 years ago, I did some minor repairs for the owner, who had terminal cancer, so he could get a little enjoyment out of her before he died, I sold it for his widow to the man in Jacksonville where he baked it in dry stack storage for 3 years