PDA

View Full Version : ...sleepless in Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Los Angeles...



oldLenny
08-12-2001, 03:45 PM
:( ...Well, I just got back from a "whirlwind tour" of the South. Left Thursday night to see an Original '69 Donzi, original gel-coat, 2 owner boat. Drove 22 hours straight and then got out and saw it. Beverly Hills CA. The boat was all there and complete other than one HM manifold and one "other" manifold. The hull was extremely chalky, it had 3 LARGE grapefruit sized blisters on the forward drivers deck (port) and VERY crazed hull topsides along the sheer. This got me depressed. The leg showed signs of 32 years outside as did the boat. The trailer was original and in great shape. I was having a hard time coming to grips with the whole thing and started trying to talk myself into it. Then, other than the fact that I had the registration for both trailer and the boat, both ID's were MISSING from the items. I looked everywhere on the hull for the #'s (which I new what they were) behind dash, under deck, foil plate behind seat, inside engine compartment etc, but to no avail. As well the tag for the trailer was gone during a repaint I suppose.

I had to get this thing through the border and "import" it into Canada somehow and didn't want to leave it on the US side of the line due to serial number descrepancies. Now I got scared about the whole arrangement and decided to bail out of it.

So to make a long story short, I don't have the Donzi, I left US$ 750 for the truck and mileage rental, $250 in gasoline and a $500 deposit all along the I-5, took one day off work, drove 3000 miles in 56 hours straight. Now it is Sunday at 8am, I am home safe, and I am spending as much on Donzi's as the rest of you are but I don't actually have one. :rolleyes:
oh, and you know,...I don't know if I actually like the 100+ degree weather and the 15 minute suntan. The fact that most of California is on fire tho makes for nice sunsets!

Tomahawk
08-12-2001, 05:23 PM
Good Grief - sounds like it would have been quite a project anyway. Better let someone else mess with that one. Sooner or later, a fairly straight boat will show up in Portland, Seattle or Vancouver (or someplace) that will work for you. Good luck Len. :)

Tony
08-12-2001, 05:39 PM
The guy should have lightened up and given you the $500 deposit back. I trust that he doesn't represent ALL southern Californians!

oldLenny
08-12-2001, 06:16 PM
I believe he will, after the Pay-Pal aftermath and transaction crap. $5M homes and the like don't need my $500....I sure do....

p.s. Why doesn't Scot have a Graemlin for a crying Canadian whiner?...I could have used it in this post a couple of times...

Formula Jr
08-13-2001, 03:31 AM
Here ya go Len.

http://www.epud.net/~owen/cry.gif

Blewbyu
08-13-2001, 05:10 AM
Holy catfish!What a BUMMER!That kinda stuff BITES!!
You shoulda bought that MINX in Woodinville that I sent you pics of.Just saw it last week-it is gorgeous!!
Hey-sumpthin just has to show up pretty ssoon....
Regards-Jeff :(

Formula Jr
08-13-2001, 05:41 AM
Len, cut the list alittle. Tell us what you really want and the condition and price there of. It can be found. I see them all the time. What I see you doing is thrashing. Thats not a knock, I understand it completely, but be specific in the search. My eyes and ears just found a 15k showroom Hornet II, but its not a bench seat. So pass. You need that kind of network, to find boats before they are advertised. Looks like you are in good hand's here. And I mean what I said in the E-mail.

RickSE
08-13-2001, 10:37 AM
Len,
I don't remember but were you considering 16's or are you only looking at 18's? Here is a 16 that's for sale in Phoenix.
http://www.boattraderonline.com/addetail.html?11540482

http://images.traderonline.com/EMedia/tarchive2/220/002037442/00203744201.jpg

Let me know if your interested and I'll go check it out for you.

Also, here's a 22 in Lake Havasu.
http://www.boattraderonline.com/addetail.html?12427480

DOND
08-13-2001, 02:53 PM
LEN,IS THIS THE YELLOW BOAT IN THE BOATTRADER AND RECENTLY ON THIS SIGHT ALSO? IF SO I SPOKE WITH THE OWNER AND HAD PICTURES EMAILED TO ME.FROM THE PICTURES IT LOOKED PRETTY GOOD.
I AM IN THE SAME DILEMMA YOU ARE IN. I HAVE BEEN SCOURING EVERY WHERE I KNOW HOW TO FIND A BOAT. EVERYTHING IS EITHER TOO FAR AWAY TO EXPENSIVE FOR THE CONDITION OR BEYOND MY CAPABILITIES TO RESTORE.GOOD LUCK IN YOUR SEARCH SOMEDAY WE WILL FIND SOMETHING.

oldLenny
08-13-2001, 03:55 PM
yes, it is...closest reasonably priced one to me as of yet (last 2 years) that I had time to act on and actually try to secure. It is not a bad boat. The pictures make it look PERFECT. The deck bubbles are not visible and 32 years of beachings are not apparent either. The trailer looks good and rolls nice and rusty leaf springs are the only age give-away. The Holman Moody manifold on port looks fine and there is a "new" one on starboard. The old one is cracked or something but available. The drive is a rebuilt due to a failure in the "old" one that is available as parts. The gel-coat needs much more than a cut wax. It needs a sand-down paint job, and a reversal process undertaken for the forward deck. I assume it is from a cover that pooled water there and then it leached into the gel-coat, set off a chemical reaction with the styrene underneath on un-cured resin/strand ends and the resulting gases have created the separation and "bubbles". Needs to be stripped to the lay-up and redone I imagine.

BUT!!!It was sure nice to finally see an un-touched origianl un-hacked up DONZI from a time long ago. I was thinking on my LONG drive home about the whole concept of this. The big three were building some of the planets finest muscle cars in 1969, Jimi Hendrix was writing his best music, peace was cool, Amercians were dying in Vietnam Walter Cronkite talked to me on the black and white TV, and this guy (DON ARONOW) had the vision to do the same thing as the BIG THREE only with boats. These things are well built to be sure and look like they need and want to work hard. I love the idea of 300 HP sitting against the transom in a little 16' boat with open exhaust.

Again, it was nice to finally see an original boat that hasn't had a jig-saw lose its mind inside...Lenny