John Calvert
Cadet
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2009
- Messages
- 6
Fellow Starcraft owners..
We put our 1975 Chieftain in the water last weekend for the first time in over 3 years after an extensive restoration.
The story is long but the short version is that we have a 1975 Starcraft Chieftain 18 with a 115 Evinrude. My wife's grandmother was the second owner and bought it sometime around 1977. My wife and her siblings all learned to fish and ski in this boat. Grandma gave it to us around 1992. Our kids now have also grown up in this boat. We moved to coastal Georgia in 2002 and the humidity finally finished the deck by 2006. We decided to do a complete trailer off restoration. It has taken 3 years, countless hours of work and loads of money but we are almost finished.
My wife's 88 year old grandmother was here from Oklahoma for the holidays so it seemed like a perfect time since this was her boat...disregard the fact that it was 50 degrees. She was game for a ride so off we went to the ramp. We put in close to downtown Savannah in the intercoastal waterway. We picked up grandma at a nearby marina. All 6 of us were aboard bundled up in winter gear for about a one hour cruise out to the sound and back.
Everything performed perfectly including my new electronics...finally have a GPS and a decent depth finder. Engine ran great and she planed out perfectly.. topped out at 35 at 5000 RPM. The only hitch was misreading the tide chart?we came back to the ramp at dead low tide.. awe man! Miraculously I didn?t run her aground and barely had enough water to get her back on the trailer.
All I have left to do is fabricate a rear bench seat, install a swim deck and some missing trim. By spring we will be good to go.
I have invested enough to buy a much newer boat but it just wouldn't be the same. There is something special about this old girl.
OK, hopefully this is the right place to post this project. Seems I hi-jacked another dude?s thread that I thought was a generic Starcraft thread?my bad, sorry guys! I should stick to restoring boats and planes and stay off this thing.
Here are some photos showing before and after...
http://s688.photobucket.com/albums/vv248/StarcraftSkipper/1975%20Starcraft%20Chieftain%20Restoration/
John
We put our 1975 Chieftain in the water last weekend for the first time in over 3 years after an extensive restoration.
The story is long but the short version is that we have a 1975 Starcraft Chieftain 18 with a 115 Evinrude. My wife's grandmother was the second owner and bought it sometime around 1977. My wife and her siblings all learned to fish and ski in this boat. Grandma gave it to us around 1992. Our kids now have also grown up in this boat. We moved to coastal Georgia in 2002 and the humidity finally finished the deck by 2006. We decided to do a complete trailer off restoration. It has taken 3 years, countless hours of work and loads of money but we are almost finished.
My wife's 88 year old grandmother was here from Oklahoma for the holidays so it seemed like a perfect time since this was her boat...disregard the fact that it was 50 degrees. She was game for a ride so off we went to the ramp. We put in close to downtown Savannah in the intercoastal waterway. We picked up grandma at a nearby marina. All 6 of us were aboard bundled up in winter gear for about a one hour cruise out to the sound and back.
Everything performed perfectly including my new electronics...finally have a GPS and a decent depth finder. Engine ran great and she planed out perfectly.. topped out at 35 at 5000 RPM. The only hitch was misreading the tide chart?we came back to the ramp at dead low tide.. awe man! Miraculously I didn?t run her aground and barely had enough water to get her back on the trailer.
All I have left to do is fabricate a rear bench seat, install a swim deck and some missing trim. By spring we will be good to go.
I have invested enough to buy a much newer boat but it just wouldn't be the same. There is something special about this old girl.
OK, hopefully this is the right place to post this project. Seems I hi-jacked another dude?s thread that I thought was a generic Starcraft thread?my bad, sorry guys! I should stick to restoring boats and planes and stay off this thing.
Here are some photos showing before and after...
http://s688.photobucket.com/albums/vv248/StarcraftSkipper/1975%20Starcraft%20Chieftain%20Restoration/
John
It had to go.
