How Did you Get to the Point You Are Now

**gary slagle** · 09-01-2015, 07:05 PM

boating family for at least 3 generations,started out with an 8 ft pram with oars,then 3 hp champion outboard,got to drive dads & grandpas boats for several years ,after i saved my $$ ,bought a 15 ft checkmate with 85 merc 4 cyl, then 150 inline then a merc 175.wore that dam checkmate out ! then new baja 16 with v 6, a few boats in between , new hydrostream vector with 2.4 in 1985 ,sold & 1988 bought my new mastercraft prostar (which i still have),went to firebird raceway in 1994 & bought a deaver drag hydro,that thing schooled me a lot about speed,money & performance, was an e ticket ride! came back to my outboard roots in 2005 when i got my river rocket, not as fast or quick as the hydro ,but a cadillac ride for my ageing body! forgot ,pontoon , 12 ft jonboat , boating IS an addiction!

**baja200merk** · 09-01-2015, 08:27 PM

My parents bought a 16ft sportfish cc 60 merc from family the year I turned 11 and got my boating license. I got outrun by my best friends 17 Montauk 90 Yamaha so that winter I walked dogs in the snow till I could buy my own boat. 17 checkmate with a 115 cross flow I cleaned up that summer and took it to work since I was still years from having a lisence in nyc.... That junk has just multiplied into more junk since then... Exponentially more junk.....

**rock** · 09-01-2015, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by baja200merk

That junk has just multiplied into more junk since then... Exponentially more junk.....

Very, very accurate.

Rock

**Dave S** · 09-01-2015, 10:49 PM

HeeHee.... I was riding my bicycle many years ago......wit a beer.....since then drinking. That wasn't what you were asking.....First boar ride....Zacks bay 14 years old on my brothers miny most with a 18 rude. On the deck all 4 feet of it. Then came the cabin crusers wakes. ****ebola. HeeHee. He sold that boat to me and I put a Mk20 power head on a Merc 220 auto shift lower unit. It don't fit.... belive me. My farther made a adaptor/spacer plate for it. He worked in a sign factory in glen cove NY.

**jphii** · 09-01-2015, 11:07 PM

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

**Dave S** · 09-01-2015, 11:08 PM

I post before I lose it......My next boat was a 13 foot Desilva Next to the church I went to...$10 dollars. Took it home and Dad showed me how to wood work and glass work. Notice the Work. Got a Merc 450 Mark58 every thing..... and put it together Rode it to the boat on my bicycle in parts. Lowered the boat off a dock. Mowed the laydes lawn for dock space. The boat ran 45 Mph in 1969 .... I was 19 years old. A guy in school had a boat like mine..... well not really....A 14 foot Desilva with a V4 rude 20 overdrive walterpetterson lower unit.... and a racide prop...STEEL noe stainless.It only did 70 mph. It was pull start and go... no gear shift.Solid mounts and a boat that felt like a drum......all the motor spoke out.I told him ya gotta jack it up a few wears latter and the boat was un safe.

**Dave S** · 09-01-2015, 11:23 PM

My next ride was a boat that looked like a boat. 10 foot made by some guy that worked at a space plant? 3/8 thick 10 inch running bottom and 1/4 inch chines.And the rest was1/4 too .100 lbs with the glass I put on the bottom. A mk 20H or a Champ hot rod motor. I had a transom that I could rotate for different hights. Then I cut down a D quicksilver lower unit and a OMC 40 hp drive exstion A 44cid power head......65mph..luckly I had a week prop. If I had a Walter Johnson the boat would have been killer.**** too many words. I flipped it before I got out of school......

**Hydro-Peep** · 09-02-2015, 05:44 AM

JPEROG,
Yes i would have been about 6 or 7 in 92 or 93, i loved going with him when it involved the boats, still do. I remember going to Gun Lake quite often with either him or uncle Dan. Hes slowing down with the fast boat stuff now, loves his fishing in his Allison.

**bearclaw** · 09-02-2015, 02:23 PM

Of all the boats I loved and lost... I miss my 8' Minimax with the 9.8 the most. Or maybe I miss being 12 yrs old. Probably both.

**Li'l Toy** · 09-02-2015, 09:46 PM

My Dad and I built a Minimax for my brother. Then he helped a friend's son (his Dad wanted him to learn to do things with his hands, and his Dad didn't have the know-how) build a MiniMost, and the kid promptly beat my brother and I in the Gold Coast Marathon! Built a MiniMax in a bedroom while I was in college as a project with my future brother-in-law. Then my son and I built one when he was maybe 10, put a 9-1/2 Evinrude on it, he built a trailer from 2x4s and lawnmower wheels and towed it down to the nearby drainage canal with our riding mower! Love MiniMaxes!

**Dave S** · 09-02-2015, 09:58 PM

HeeHee 2=4 trailer??? my buddy usta wheel his v4 in a wheel barrol no kidding..... then get the boat.....times were different then. Cheep fun/thrills....

**Wildman78** · 09-02-2015, 10:01 PM

I jumped right in with both feet this past fall. Bought a 19' checkmate exciter setup running low 70's. Took the labbed 26p prop off and put a 19p 4 blade on it. Been running it in training wheels mode all summer. Kept my finger off the trim and outta trouble. She would still just touch 50 no trim which has been good enough for me. Finally feeling confident enough to bump the trim a little and let her fly. It's really scary the first few times feeling her come on the pad and feeling the bow air out. I've seen about 58 with it and was running out of rpm. Plus at that point she was getting looser then I liked and backed out of it a little.

**Chaz** · 09-02-2015, 10:22 PM

At about 10 years old my folks would drop me off at either Freds Place or Alabama Jacks with enough money to get something to eat , a few soda's and rental fee's for a half day in one of their jon boats with a 9.9 flat top , while they visited friends at the Ocean Reef club . Must have set them back 20- 25 dollars ..
About that same time frame , they bought me a Sears mini-bike for 99 dollars . I did have to collect coke bottles to buy my own gas . But @ 19c a gallon it didnt take to many bottles to ride all day .

Things have changed ....

A few years ago , our local Jr. Dragster two time champion's father bought him my at the time , my two year old car . And bought a 850 hp mail order BBC to drop in it .
So here we had a 16 year old kid , while a very accomplished racer in the Briggs + Stratton class , and a state drivers license that was only a few weeks old ... making passes in the 7.70 / 175 mph range .

JR Todd who now drives for Conny Kalitta . Got his start in much the same way . His father got him in an IHRA Top Fuel ride at 16 , right out of the Jr. program.
I've seen him run 4.70's / 310 mph .

Scares the he11 out of me , but what they lack in experience , these kids must make up for in reflexes ...

Durring the boom , it seemed like there were a lot of people who would say .. Hey I wanna go do this or that . And instead of coming up "thru the ranks" , they would say , Honey , write this man a check ... and be right at the top from day one .. I'm sure there are many who did not survive ...

**whipper** · 09-03-2015, 03:15 AM

haha interesting stuff!! In the 60,s had a wood kayak and 8ft dory at my family's summer ocean front cottage. My dad had a 14ft wood flat bottam boat with a 20hp Scott. When i was around 7 he would let me take it to fish as long as I didnt go out of site. My uncle Perk raced hydroplanes so I was always interested in that when he would come over to the cottage. he always had the fastest boats! In the 70,s a 200 hp tunnel hull he would take me for fast rides in and that got me hooked! My friend in my teens has hondos and Catilina type V drives but I could only afford a 14ft Glastron with a 115. It was fast but not as fast as i wanted to go. I swore one day as soon as i could afford it i would buy a fast boat. well many slow boats mostly ocean fishing boats and also fished off shore for halibut and Salmon on the north west coast on the Alaska boarder i got enough money to buy my Allison. To me its slow now with the power but that will change before long. Ive driven 100 mph in a buddys boat but not mine. Mid to high 90,s is all I could ever get out of her. My next boat will do over 100 for sure. I will not buy a boat that doesnt now. Before that i may get a 260 or something to get mine over 100 but any other boat i buy will.

**MODVP22** · 09-03-2015, 12:10 PM

My mom started boating when she was young, my grandfather seen how much fun a coworker was having and got a small ski boat with a 'Rude in the late 60s then into a Mark Twain/Merc. My dad got into boats after his first wife in the late 70's. My first ride was in their SeaRay when I was 7 days old. Drilled out exhaust and nose cones on a 200 Mariner/Concord, then a V8 'Rude then first tunnel in 1996 Mirage Trinity, worked for a local marina in high school. More Mirage's, Allison's, STV's and my brother (TNT) and I are hooked until the end, lol.