Rebuild, Part 1: The Plan - Fall 2014

For a small boat, a technical poling skiff can cost an ass-load of money. Yes, your drift boat was not cheap, but if you quadruple what you paid for that dory, you start getting into the ballpark of what a good new skiff will cost you. As soon as you start adding the niceties, costs can skyrocket out of control until you have a sweet boat but no home (and no wife), and now you’re living in your boat down by the ramp. Awesome lifestyle for some, but for us non-homeless types, a new skiff is just not something that makes sense to our accountants.
No, the rest of us must find our boats the old-fashioned way…on the Interwebs marketplace. Lucky for all of us dwellers in the classifieds world (we call ourselves the mole people, and we harbor great contempt for you surface dwellers with your new boats) there are usually great deals to be had on used boats all over the Southeast.JTVCYWRyb3RhdGUlMjBncm91cCUzRCUyMjElMjIlNUQ=Now you have your used boat, and what was a great boat for someone else 10 years ago might not be set up the way you like. Some nagging issues that have to be addressed, outdated electronics and wiring, or as in our case the gas tank might leak like a sieve the first time you fill it up. Even with problems, a re-worked used skiff should still be able to save you some coin over going all in on that new boat.

Since we here at SCOF are scientists first, we have set out to prove that very hypothesis. For our project boat we tracked down a 2003 Hells Bay Whipray Professional. The HB Professional is as classic as they come, and we’ve never heard a negative word to be said about this model and year. We bought the boat down in Florida and it went straight from the previous owner to the service bay at Hell’s Bay HQ. What’s nice about dealing with the folks at Hells Bay is that they have their program dialed to the Nth degree. They gave the boat a full exam, and when I say full I mean prostates were checked…twice. After the exam, we had a list of everything that could be done with line item pricing. Being able to restore the boat a la carte like this helped keep us in budget and triage the situations that needed it. New nonskid, cleaning up old patches, electronics, wiring and a new trailer axle were some of the stuff we needed to take care of before the boat could or would even hit the water. Check out plans below and make sure you check the SCOF Winter Issue for for Part 2….The Build.JTVCYWRyb3RhdGUlMjBncm91cCUzRCUyMjElMjIlNUQ=