Actually Watermann, my truck stays parked outside and The Silver Lining actually gets parked in the garage with a dust cover over top of her. The only time she is uncovered is towing to and from the lake and when in use or being worked on. I am actually thinking about playing with the tabs a little as I have them set in notch 4 right now, BUT the hole shot on this boat is ridiculously insane and it helps keep the nose down. Before the tabs she would literally jump out of the water. I actually hit 54 Saturday with myself 2 passengers and 15 gallons of fuel on board. Total passenger weight about 680 lbs. I am the lightest at 165 I honestly think on smooth water, 15 gallons of fuel I could probably get 57 out of her, and I am running an aluminum prop, I believe she is a 19 pitch if I remember correctly.
As far as the stickers go I have literally spent thousands of dollars on this boat I have never actually run an exact tally on it I am way to scared to do that. Just the seating alone was around $800 or so. Out of all the money that I spent the only grief the admiral ever gave me was the stickers, over $12. Of course she didn't see the receipts for most of the other stuff, and I do a good job of hiding the actual outlay because I pick up a ton of side work to pay for it all.
Yep lets see $800 in seating who even knows about the electronics, plywood, foam, epoxy, Oak and aluminum trim (yet to be installed), motor parts, motors trailer rehabs (on trailers I don't even own anymore), Paint, tools, Rivets, GOD only knows how much on Stainless Steel hardware (the ENTIRE boat is done in stainless), 5200, throttle and shifter cables (I forgot I even bought new throttle and shifter cables until I saw them installed today), Steering, steering wheel, Lighting, Marine grade wire and electrical connectors, and god only knows what else.
Honestly The Silver Lining was never supposed to turn into 63 pages of mayhem, it was supposed to be done in 90 days and be on the water as a functional (albeit more than likely fairly ugly) watercraft, but things just kind of spiraled, here we are over 2 years later and she still isn't done. A simple thing like running electrical bought a premade harness and hated the fuse box so I changed it all. I have never even owned a boat with functioning gauges before Now here I am debating changing the whole gauge cluster because the trim gauge won't work with an early Yamaha, The steering system in the boat was functional but for SOME reason I had to have a no feedback system (albeit she steers as easily as a Cadillac now), So for someone to just purchase a brand new boat and leave it outside uncovered to rot it just is despicable to me. Maybe because it is easy to have $250 a month drafted from your checking account, its not quite so easy to let your hands heal from cuts, and making sure that bow piece lays just perfectly, or that piece of vinyl looks just right there. I am quite frankly disgusted by looking at that boat, and it isn't the boats fault, but the cover is laying on the ground right next to it.
