It has been around 7 years since I have posted. I helped complete Mike Monies' built Hull #5 (Simon Birch) destroyed in a 500-yr hailstorm in Lyons, Colorado, baseball-sized holes punched through in numerous places. She was sawed up and thrown away.
Why am I back on this site? In a moment I'll tell you. But first, I've been on a journey as I age (now 65) and my lifestyle has changed including where I live (now in the Inland desert of California [Palm Springs area]).
Since then , I have owned:
- A Sea Eagle FoldCat - could never get it to steer strait and found it a bit unstable
- Two Hobie Tandem Islands - the force necessary to hold the mainsheet became too much for my aging arms and became too wet sailing
- Two Hobie i11s Inflatable Paddle Boards - also not stable enough for me and too wet sailing
- A 20-ft Pontoon Boat I built from a kit. Enjoyed it. Had Hybrid Power but was becoming too much for me too
- A Sea Eagle Fishskiff16 - my spouse thinks it too is too unstable.
Prior to that, I owned:
- A WW Potter 15
- A Com-Pac 16
- A Com-Pac 23
- A Coronado 14
- A Horizon motor boat
A nicely equipped new fiberglass SCAMP with trailer from Gig Harbor Boat works is over $20K, and that doesn't include sales tax and shipping where you're looking at another $3K-4K, and you have to put 25% down and wait a year to get it. Wow, tying up $5K for over a year. I'm not quite ready to buy, I need to sell some things first. I'm having a hard time justifying that kind of expense. An alternative is to get a used one, but they can be all over the country. One I saw for $10K is on the east coast. Another alternative is to carefully buy a wooden one and give it a nice paint job. What are your thoughts in the SCAMP Community on my predicament?
John McNeely