The Joy of an Older Boat

It started out as a joke, sort of. I suggested to Jeff that he let me have this boat for the summer and use it for marketing, to give out swag from our providers, talk about boating issues and have a little bit of fun. Well it took some time but we finally got the boat in the water. It’s a 1985 Bayliner Cierra 2550 Designer Edition cuddy with a 260hp Volvo-Penta engine. Jeff and Mike, the owners of Roane Marine and Powersports, had the boat bottom painted and Jeff went through the engine. He had to replace the boot on the outdrive but we splashed the boat on Wednesday May 31st. The carb needs to be rebuilt, but once we got it running it ran like a champ.

Then the real fun began. The boat needed to be cleaned, from bow to stern, badly. So, Amy and I spent the first day doing nothing but washing the boat, several times, just to get the crud off. But to our surprise she cleaned up pretty well. Then Amy took apart the back seat and brought it home. (She will replace the rotten bottom board and foam.) Once we had finished that day, we decided to reward ourselves with dinner at Rick’s Dockside Grill (Tellico Marina). The food was outstanding and, of course, so was the company.

The next day we turned the boat around and finished cleaning the other side. Then we filled her up and headed to Volunteer Cove Marina. The funny part about this trip is that at some time a wire got loose and we lost all the gauges. So, I had no idea how fast we were running or more importantly how much fuel we were burning. But after a two hour trip at half throttle we pulled into Vol Cove Marina and our friend and Harbormaster Rob was waiting for us with open arms. Once tied up we called it a night. One note, I have not driven a boat with trim tabs in a long time so it took me a few minutes to level the boat out. But once that was done, she cruised perfectly.