My bro-in-laws marina guy, Rich, was at boatyard auction with only himself and 2 others in attendance. He saw a sailboat and figured I may want it. Beat out a $75 bid with his $100 bid and the boat was his. Called me and asked if I wanted a sailboat for $100, he thought it was 25, and was told it was a Hunter raceboat. I said I would love to take a look at it.

Went over Sunday and looked the boat over. Needs a lotta work. Price is right. 1974 Hunter 25 Hull #14

First Look

A shot of the keel. Cant really see but the keel is smiling a very big smile!

Keel

Tiller rotated the rudder just fine. Outboard lift looks in good shape and moved as suppoused to.

Rudder

Rained out at work yesterday so grabbed my bro-in-law and headed to get the free trailer. Place I worked last year had a 32 Owens or some such cruiser on it. Wooden hull rotted so they crushed and dumpstered it. I asked about the trailer and they said, no problem.

One flat on a triaxle trailer. No problem, back axle wasnt near the ground on the low hitch of his truck. Just took the flat off and away we went.

Stopped at my other bro-in-laws house for some fence posts and boat stand parts. Seems the trailer has pipe on it for jacks of some sort. Fence posts fit the boat stands threaded jacks. Away we went to the boatyard that had the boat.

Backed up to the boat, dropped the trailer and wondered just how in the world we were gonna do this....

Keel needs to come up at least 18 inches to clear the trailer. All we have is a couple floor jacks and the boat stands the boat is sitting on. Hmmm.... Start cranking the jacks up, the keel raises, block the keel, crank some more, block the keel, crank some more, etc... crank nauseum.

Dark by now, jacks extended fully. Boat looks iffy stability wise. Never having done this with a keelboat before we are all guessing and a bit nervous about it. Block the keel and SLOWLY lower the front jacks a bit. Boat dont move. Lower a bit more, boat still dont move. Shake boat a bit. Seems ok. Still need 6 inches or so to clear trailer. Move jacks almost against keel, kinda forward. More cranking jacks. Ok, finally looks like we can clear trailer with keel.

Block keel again. SLOWLY lower jacks, boat stays there. NO shaking of boat this time!! Turn jacks around and lean against hull precariously, connect chain and SLOWLY crank up once more. Looks steady. Remove blocks from under keel.

SLOWLY push trailer under boat. Rear axles one remaining tire wont clear stands. Hmm, easy enough, pull trailer out a bit and remove offending tire. Slowly push trailer back under boat, ok, hubs just clear stands, keel just clears trailer crossmembers. BEAUTIFUL! Till center axles tires stop against stands.

Hmm, easy enough, pull trailer out a bit and remove offending tireS. Ok, now a single axle trailer essentially. Push trailer back under boat, keel clears, hubs clear...... you guessed it, tires on front axle stop against stands. No problem, put two tires on rear axle, take 2 off front axle and under she goes.

Two tires back on front axle and hopefully we are done swapping tires. Pad and threaded rod part of the boat stands fit into the fenceposts, fenceposts fit on pipe welded to trailer. All we had to do was torch the fenceposts to the right lengths.

Crank up the pads on the trailer and then crank down the boatjacks on the ground and she set down like the trailer was made for this boat!!!!!!!

Trailer

Unfotunately no straps, so a couple dock lines strategically tied from each cleat down to the trailer and we were ready to go. Not far from this boatyard to my bro-in-laws marina so we went there with it. With just the fenceposts standing alone the boat wobbled a bit but we went REALLY slow and made it.

Raining pretty good today so I just pumped the water out of her, maybe 10 inches or so. Took out a couple garbage bags of soggy stuff, life jackets, rags, electronics, etc. Tied a blue poly over the hatch and went home.

Mine now!