April 2011 House Boat Magazine will feature Thirsty Turtle 47' Boatel Islander restoration project!

I purchased cheap, but spent 4 hours going thru it before purchase, Progressive insures these good rates no survey. The key is to find one with out wood rot under the fiberglass we looked at over 40 boats and this is the only Boatel and the only one without stringer and transome rot that we found.

Boatsteve

Old Houseboater great post! I am glad I did not read it a year ago though. I bought some waterfront property on Kentucky Lake, Kentucky from a guy named Cliff who was having some serious health problems. We worked out a deal that included him throwing in a 1950 Jefferson steel hull. (Any one in the audience worried yet?) The boat was originally built for Budweiser as a tour/ partly boat as the story goes. (I am going to try and find out for sure in some research.)The Boat and the old dock were both in bad shape, but LUCKILY both very fixable. Me being a water nut since birth, a huge Clive Cussler fan and a handy enough guy with a wrench/ hammer/  volt meter/ torch/ and welder I only saw the endless possibilities in the rusty old girl. Lucky for me the boat had a total restoration 7 years prior. I am told, and now believe after scuba diving the entire bottom this spring, that a professional welder spent 80 hours fixing and replating parts of the bottom. It was then shined up with a fresh coat of paint and some cold tar epoxy. It twin Detroit diesel 4-71 with intercoolers and whipple superchargers fitted down into the gutted hull after it was put back in the water. I am still amazed every time I look at the front door that those behemoths fit, I guess in pieces. He also fitted the boat with a 15 kw, or kv diesel generator, about 700 gallons of fuel storage, about 800 gallons of water storage, a deep freeze and a clothes washer all in the hull. After that was done Cliff did an amazing job on the interior. Pictures to come. My family and I love the boat and spend some of our best times out on it. I took it for a 5 hour cruse earlier this year without issue or much fuel consumption. I figure that is pretty good considering that is two hours further than Gilligan got. I plan on pulling the boat this winter and having it sandblasted then attacking the inner hull with a descaler some fresh 1/4” thick 4”x4” angle iron to sure it up and then putting down some rust converter then a coat of rust encapsulator to try and shut down most of the rusting process. I will also need to put some zinc Anodes or the electronic gadget that the Navy is now using to protect it from future rusting. Then we will do a fresh bottom job with cold tar epoxy, or something else if highly recommended by the boating experts reading this forum. The electrical is a bit scary. With that coming from a guy who grew up twisting wires for his dad, the master electrician, you should really think it’s pretty scary. Both the 120v and 12 systems need to be gone through entirely. But the bright side is I may get rich off the old copper J.  The biggest drawback to the plans is I am Active duty Army just deployed to Iraq for a 6 month tour. So I plan to spending what ever free time I have planning and researching products and advise on this site and anything else I can find. I have been looking at the posts for the last couple of days and am happy to be the newest member. I was amazed by posts links and pictures that guys like EJ and Willie have shared. Truly inspiring guys, thanks for sharing. I will hope that the veteran houseboaters will keep me out of trouble and give me solid advise.  And with that I will close my first post, promising to never write so much stuff again.