Tnstratofam
Commander
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2013
- Messages
- 2,679
Well sports fans we bought another boat. She is a 1996 Stratos 278 FS. With the original 1996 Evinrude 150. She is a 2 owner boat originally sold at Clark Marine in Franklin Tn. We purchased her 3 weekends ago from the widow of the second owner in Clinton TN which is just outside of Knoxville. She is solid as a rock and dry to the core. It is obvious from her condition she has been well taken care of and kept in a garage.
I have gone over her with a fine tooth comb and all the wood is dry and blonde to the core. She is an 18 footer and once I service all the important parts on the engine ( New water pump kit, drain and refil the gas tank, change the lower unit oil and do a pressure test on it ) we are going to hit the water.
Honestly this boat appears to be a jewel for a 22 year old boat. She was only on Craigslist 3 days counting the Sunday we drove down to get her, and the seller got 5 calls while we were standing in her driveway. She still came down a little on the price and in the end I think it was a good deal for a great boat.
We look forward to trying her out and making her ours with a few modifications to make her more fishing friendly.
Oh and on a side note we did sell the 88 Stratos 2000XLS. A gentlemen from somewhere west of Nashville drove up and bought her to redo and flip. I have pictures of the work he did and will try to update my resto thread on her later to show the work done. We lost money on her, but got a priceless education on boats in the 5 years we owned her.
We still have the Starcraft and will keep her until we get our new Stratos sorted out. Then our goal will be to thin the fleet down to one boat. Although I am sure MBS will be hard to overcome.
