So after much search­ing, near miss­es and near­ly end­less options I have final­ly pur­chased a boat. There have been sev­er­al boats in the past that have seemed like they would be good fits, but either the tim­ing was way off, or they just didn’t feel right. This one felt right.

The boat is a S2 8.0 C. Yep, that means it is only 26 feet, but it has a cen­ter cock­pit open­ing up an aft cab­in.  That is the main attrac­tion of this par­tic­u­lar boat. The 8.0 Cs aren’t the pret­ti­est things on the water. In fact this one looks like it should have PlaySkool writ­ten across the stern.

The boat is going to need more work than I real­ly want­ed. The engine hasn’t been start­ed in years (though it isn’t seized) and has some delami­ta­tion near the stan­chions. Aside from that the inte­ri­or needs to be redone. These boats have car­pet on the head­lin­er and the walls of the cab­in and I don’t like it in most of the pic­tures I have seen. While the car­pet prob­a­bly adds a bit of insu­la­tion, unless I change my mind once it gets here then I will remove it and paint instead.

Since the boat isn’t here yet I am start­ing my list from pic­tures and emails with the sell­er. But here is what I have now:

◆    Repair soft spots in deck
◆    Re-bed stanchions
◆    Repair engine (or replace with outboard)
◆    Make new cush­ions for set­tees and bunks
◆    Remove floor carpet
◆    Replace headliner
◆    Remove the car­pet from the bulkheads
◆    Paint bulkheads

In addi­tion to this list are the addi­tions or mod­i­fi­ca­tions that I planned for any boat that I had purchased.

Add
◆    Solar system
◆    Com­post­ing toilet
◆    Stern grill
◆    Extra 12V outlets
◆    Bimini

The boat comes with a trail­er and I am arrang­ing deliv­ery to the moun­tain. So the boat will be parked right out­side my house. That means I will be able to work on it reg­u­lar­ly, and won’t have stor­age fees. It also means that while I don’t have a vehi­cle that is strong enough to pull it, it can be moved by any­body with a 3/4 ton truck and can be moved in and out of the water at a boat ramp instead of being lift­ed in and out of the water at a marina.

I may or may not do every­thing on the list. Some­things are nec­es­sary before I take the boat any where or move aboard. Oth­ers, like paint­ing, aren’t strict­ly nec­es­sary, but real­ly need to be done when there are no ani­mals aboard. So the cur­rent plan (though we all know how plans tend to not work out,) is to spend my mon­ey repair­ing and out­fit­ting and then work through the sum­mer again to replace the mon­ey I didn’t intend to bud­get to the boat.