Tuesday, September 02, 2008


Well, Jimmy has a new endeavor.......the Titanic! We had seen an ad for a guy selling a 43 foot Wellcraft, Portofino, one weekend when we were at the lake, so we decided to go look at it.
When we drove up to it, in the boat, Jimmy noticed that it was sitting lower in the water, than it should have. When we stepped on board, in the cabin, the carpet went "SQUISH"... somehow, it was sinking. The engines, batteries, etc. were 2 feet under water! Needless to say, Jimmy called the guy and said "Do you know that your boat is sinking?" He freaked and called his worker to go to the dock and see what he could do. In the meantime, Jimmy had found a fuse and switched it into the bilge pump, so one of them worked....for a little while....and pumped about 6 inches out of the boat. The batteries had corroded so bad that the posts rotted off. All the wiring harnesses were ruined, the whole boat needs to be rewired. The inside was all mildewed and moldy..the walls, etc. were awful! (They had just put new carpet and upholstry in) The couches had leeched the stinky water and were ruined....it was so sad!
Anyway, the guy who owns it says the insurance company will pay for everything and he and Jimmy have yet to work out the final deal, but we spent the last weekend in the boat slip, working on the boat. It has not regained any water, and no one can find where the water came from. Jimmy drained the motors to check for water in the oil, but they seem okay. Saturday, he got one engine started, and it actually sounded nice and smooth. The starter is shot on the other one, so he "Jimmy rigged" everything and basically "hotwired" the second motor. Once they were running, we took the boat out on the lake (as you can see from the picture) and it ran fine. It seems to be a sound boat, but needs to be rewired, water pump, bilge pumps, one of the a/c pumps replaced and the interior re-done. But, if the price is right, Jimmy has a new project!
Since we are not ready to build our house at the lake, yet, this would suffice, for awhile.