Chiquita's Restoration
One thing was apparent when you first saw "Chiquita" when I first brought her home... She wasn't the pretties boat on the water. Nor was she the most comfortable. And on top of that, she was SCREAMING YELLOW, with DOO DOO brown vinyl seats that once served as a buffet table for a family of racoons. The seats had more holes than a sponge, the carpet was peeling, stunk of gas, and fish blood and was soaked. Did I mention I love a challenge?
The owner prior had the same phillosphy as I did. He wanted an affordable, semi-reliable, STARTER fishing vessel to get him out on the salt to troll for and stalk salmonoids. He originally purchased the boat with a non-reliable outboard that shortly crapped out on him, and a rusting trailer. He purchased an entirely different boat and trailer for $500 and parted it out. He took the trailer she sits on now, a galvenized 1989 Caulkins roller, and the motor from the old boat, a 1989 50HP Mariner as well as the ill-fitting boat top that you had to crouch to get into and heavily soild with oils and fish blood. He added a fish finder, kicker bracket and an old 15hp Chrysler Kicker that he got a great deal on from his mechanic. He outfitted her with a handheld VHF and a Scotty manual downrigger, along with some rod holders and was set for the salt. With this set up he did real well stalking his home waters and successfully landing quite a few salmon. But was quickly ready for a bigger boat, at the same time I was looking to get into a nice "starter" boat. She was literally, the "bare minimum" when it came to style, comfort and "fish-ability", but was exactly what I had in my bank account, so ultimately it came down to funds. The second I saw her I instantly saw the potential and knew rite away when I turned that corner and saw her parked outside, "hey, so there's my boat...". I was excited to get her home and got to work on her rite away.
First things first. I began stripping away all of the old carpet. Any rusting, molding or rotting was removed. And this is what I was left with.
Shortly after this, I had taken Chiquita out to the Columbia for springers. With all of the adrenaline going I got a little excited that morning when I went to warm up my Chrysler kicker motor. I pulled so hard I broke the rope off. I was so upset and discouraged. That next weekend I stumbled upon a great find at the annual Des Moines Marina Swap Meet and picked this up. A new Merc 8 hp kicker, at a great price, I was stoked!
Then, I finally stacked up enough coin to do my first attempted at a new configured interior with marine carpet. My goal was to have more space, and a bigger storage area AT A BUDGET. So this is what I came up with.
It worked out for maybe the first couple of trips. I didn't like how big I made the boxes. It really ristricted my area and was more storage than I actually needed. I also didn't like that I had to make them out of wood. When the ground would get wet, it would climb up the wood. I knew it was only time until this would pose another rotting problem. I realized I needed a smaller set of boxes, they needed to be water proof, hold the weight of one person and would be lockable, as I will be keeping my boat moored over night from time to time. I came up with this idea walking around a GI-Joes store.
They were little dry boxes with hinges that would allow me to place pad locks on either end and lock them up. Along with 4 stainless steel bolts, I bolted them to the floor of the boat. Viola! Boat seats/Storage.
Okay, so I've made her comfortable enough for summer in Seattle. And because she was practicaly a floating project, meaning I was working on her in the middle of Salmon season, I needed to quickly focus my attention on the "catching" aspect of her. So after doinng some reasearch and consulting a few veteran salties I decided on a Scotty 1106 with swivel base. And run my manual longarm Scotty on the other side. At the same time I also needed a bette way of holding my fully extended fishing rods so that they were out of the way and not banging against each other so I added a rocket launcher in the rear, and a little basket to hold all my scents so I didn't have to waste valuable fishing time by rumaging through my tackle for them. I also added a SS Scotty gaff, mounted on holders and a weight caddy for my downrigger balls. also mount my fish bonker there so I don't have to tear up my inside looking for it with a fish flapping around on the floor. Everything was designed to save space and be efficient while fishing.
>One day during that string of fish filled days, something happened that got my immediate attention. I ran into one of the members of the Gamefishin' web board. Anyhow, this was the very first time I had to actually speak on my portable VHF that I got with the boat and guess what... I was essentially talking to myself. This was unacceptable. I ended up getting an Icom 25w VHF for her that night. As well as a better Icom Handheld for back up. Then I stopped over at Boaters world and picked up a 8' Centennial Antenna and a Stainless Steel mount and got home and got to work.
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