moretodaythanyesterday
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2002
- Messages
- 9
I'll never forget. My brother, who has this uncanny nack for talking people into stuff, finally talked my dad in buying a boat. He was 14 I was 11 or 12. We shopped and researched as best we could. In those days (circa 1968)there wasn't a whole lot to go on other than "word of mouth". We finally decided upon a 1967 Thunderbird (must have been 17' or 18')with the "cathedral hull" (whoopee). Motor was a 'rude 90, so big a grown man couldn't put his arms around the thing. We weren't about to complain, we were just **** glad to be off the beach. He and I stroked and caressed that boat till it looked better than new. Older bro had talked the owner of the local boat dealership into a job so he was our source of mechanical info. We tuned, decarbed and adjusted till it was in tip top shape with the exception of some minor detail I fail to remember now. <br />No doubt we had the best looking 2 year old boat around. Our house was situated on a hill in such a way that the driveway was around back on a alley. If you went out to the east with trailer in tow, the transition between the alley and side street was such that the boat scraped and put undue stresses on our equipment. The west route was much smoother and only required circling the block so we always defaulted to that direction. We decided to take the boat to the dealer to get that one last tweak so that perfection could at last be had, or so we thought. Older bro hooks the boat to the family wagon, safety chains, lights, etc. and proceeds to back the trailer into the driveway so that we can take the westerly exit. Little did we know he had failed to double check the coupling and the hitch was not on the ball. Just about the time the trailer axle crossed the threshhold of our very steep driveway our boat proceeded, at a rapid rate, down the hill into the back of another vehicle we had, completely smashing our 90 hp 'rude. No damage to the boat, only the 'rude. Well, the old man come home and is pissed to say the least. A few days later he got over it and took the insurance money and added a little more to it to purchase a brand new Johnson 115 hp. I think we ran 2000+ gallons of fuel through that boat that summer. Back then we'd vacation on the coast of Carolina for a month at a time. We cruised and skied the ICW ( from Myrtle Beach to the Calibogy Sound), Atlantic Ocean (as much as 25 mile out mind you in a tri-hull)and every other wet spot in the state it seemed. It'll be a long time before I forget that boat and if I ever see one for sale it'll be hard to resist.
