new member intro

[deerfly]

Old new guy here. Name is eric, also a rare Fl native . Grew up fishing and free diving all over S Fl, the keys and Bahama's a good bit too, early 70's to mid 90's. Primarily ran around in 17' - 23' Mako's and a friends 25' SeaVee back in the day. Lusted over SeaCrafts back then too, but never owned one. Relocated to west central Fl area some years ago. Mostly fish these parts now, but do run to charlotte harbor area and down to Chokoloskee a few times or more a year as well.

Now for why I'm here. I sold a primarily inshore skiff and just replaced it with a 77 20' Master Angler. Turns out the seller was the second owner and has owned it the past 25 years. The boat is very well maintained, remarkable actually given the age. It does have a few soft spots in the deck that will need tending to at some point, but nothing major or urgent. Best I can tell without doing core samples I could probably get a season or more out of it without doing anything. The transom was redone about 20 years ago too, its 25" and shows some stress cracks, but has a full transom bracket. The engine is a 2-stroke 2000 175 Johnson.

Ran it around in a nearby lake yesterday with my son. Boat runs and handles great. but as is somewhat typical with these old hulls with brackets and/or heavy modern motors the self bailing deck floods a bit at rest. Naturally, I'm not crazy about the flooding and need to look at ways to live with it or mitigate it without going head first into a restore where I can then make adjustments, shift the fuel tank forward. raise the sole etc.

I also bought the boat with the intention of re-powering to a 4 stroke for mileage and reliability too. Given most of the suitable 4-strokes are as heavy or heavier than the 175 on there now I don't have any simple options if I want to keep the bracket. I know most of the remedies are well covered here already, but will start a thread in the performance section to work through it with my hull. - eric