She’s a 1988 27’ Daytona powered by twin V8 Johnsons. It’s an awesome boat, I love it, and have owned it for 24 years. I believe I am the second owner if you don’t count the dealer I bought it from. Here’s what got me thinking.

I retired a few years ago, and went from driving 7 days a week, to pretty much not at all, and my insurance agent of 20 years couldn’t save me one penny! I finally got fed up, dropped them, and got new insurance. I saved a lot of $, but I ran into a problem, liability! The boat insurance is no problem, and cheap, but I found out nobody will cover it with an umbrella policy anymore, and excess liability costs a lot. And since I live in Seattle I don’t use it enough to pay for it year round, and nobody would answer me when I asked if I could just purchase it for the three months the boat is in use! I have well over 50 years of boating experience, never a ticket nor an accident in a boat, haven’t had a ticket in a car since I was 16, (over 40 years ago), and never an accident. Perfect credit too, and now all I can get is $100K liability (supposedly have $500K, but I won’t know for sure until I take it out of layup!) without paying an arm and a leg! Other than a 35’ Cigarette, it’s the safest boat I have ever owned, and now 100 mph is considered only a mid performance boat. So WTF?!

This got me thinking of sitting out one year of boating to save some $, and get some projects done. Started down this road in May, now it’s nearly October, and even though my marina told me they “can fill the slip in a minute”, it’s been over a year that my boat has been there and they have another customer paying for the slip, I haven’t received one penny back from them! It’s always the check is in the mail!! Getting fed up, and recently bought a Cougar Cub project and starting to think maybe that’s all I need in my old age!

I would more than likely regret it if I sell it, and I am not going to give it away, but thought I would get the word out in case someone is looking for an old school Cat.

One thing I love about the boat is it has a cabin, two love seats and a bed. Hard to find on Cats it seems!

The hull has 660 total hours on it.

The factory gel coat was recently clear coated with Awlgrip down to the rub rails. No more oxidation to deal with!

The interior and upholstery is still 100% original less the back seat bottom. Had it redone by Eliminator (thanks Ron!). The rest is in pretty damn good shape, less a little stitching coming loose in one spot of the back hatch. That’s the next thing I was going to send to Eliminator.

The motors are 3.6 GTs recently built by Gordon at Monty Racing and are still oil injected with the latest pumps.

I have a lot of spare gearcases, but with the mods I have figured out over the years, I rarely even have to remove one. These two have been on 6-7 years, except to repair a cavitation plate on one when a Merc labbed Pro ET flung a blade.

The props are 32” Mercury Racing Pro ETs lab finished by Hering (Hering left a bit more meat for durability!).

The motors sit on custom manual Land and Sea Jack plates. I did this so I could fine tune, but also be able to lower them from nominal to shoehorn the boat in my carport/garage. And the boat loved having a little more setback!

The trailer is a triple axle Competitive with brand new American Racing Wheels, and Radial T/As (the original tires were like new, except drying out from age), new inner fender skirts, new bearing Buddies, new lowering blocks (looks Way better, and helps a lot with parking!), new winch, new safety cables and chains, new jack wheel, and new LED tail lights, etc.

There are some pics on my profile, and here are a couple videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqA5CYTLQrY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUBl9b2_0w

I almost bought one more new (newer) boat before I retired, but decided I would be better off keeping the old girl the rest of my life. It’s just that the planets seem to be aligning with the liability, and now moorage issues, and it's pissing me off! I am not officially putting her up for sale, at least not yet, just putting the feelers out. And that’s why I placed this in the wanted section. Sorry for the book!

Thanks,
Mike