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Hi, fellow idiots! (well, I feel like one anyway). I'm now a boat owner. I've been on boats a bit. Didn't grow up with them, had sailing team buddies in college, did a few trips with them, but mostly don't know my rear end from my elbow when it comes to boating. My wife has been bugging me about getting a boat for a few years now, we live near a bunch of good reservoirs and lakes, have space for it, tow vehicle, etc, but the main number one thing I've always known about boats is that they're expensive, and not much else, so I've been pretty hesitant. However, we're in a very comfortable financial situation and recently her cousin let her know that he was selling his ski boat (because he upgraded) and asked if we wanted to buy it. I am in a sort of semi-mid-life-sorta-crisis YOLO mentality at the moment, and I had literally just bought a bicycle for ~1/3rd what he was asking for the boat (for same YOLO crisis reasons), so I caved and said gently caress it, sure, let's do it. She drove down and picked it up from him while I was working a week or two ago, and then we both took the CA boater safety class. He (cousin) wants to come up and go out on one of the busier lakes in the area over labor day weekend, so we're like, poo poo, we better get this figured out a bit better first. So today we took it for a quick test spin. This was (for both of us) our first time launching, being the primarily responsible individuals on the boat, and loading it back on the trailer, and I have some but not much experience driving with a trailer. We decided to go to the slightly further reservoir because the boat ramp there has a dock, whereas the closer and more popular one does not, and we figured the dock would make launching a bit easier. Should have scoped it first because they're doing some work on the dam and the water level was below the bottom of the dock, hooray. It worked out fine, though; we had a nice steep ~100m ramp for me to practice backing straight down on, launched it without incident (just a bit slowly), toodled around the reservoir for a while, and then loaded it back up (with more reversing straight practice). No water skiing today, with only two of us, me having never skied or towed, and her having not skied in many years and not done the towing either, but I'm eager to give it a shot. Here is the boat. Sanger DXII, I'm a big fan of the 90s colors. 
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Aug 30, 2022 02:38
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Hadlock posted:Tiguan Okay, now that hurts. Believe it or not, that F150 with 65k miles on it that’s spent its whole life in California has its own fair share of rust on it. I blame Sausalito
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Aug 30, 2022 03:16
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gvibes posted:Nice. Just in time to winterize! (not sure where you are) yeah... winterizing will have to come soon I think (we're near Lake Tahoe)... we have highs of around 90 for the near future but also 40 degree overnight temperature drops, and it won't be too long before it starts freezing occasionally. In-laws have a place in Grass Valley which is a lot warmer where we could move it, but can still freeze in winter.
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Aug 30, 2022 17:38
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Zip ties are not all created equal in my experience, where I have some used in very strong high altitude sunlight. I’ve bought some that are specifically sold as UV resistant and they’ve held up better than others
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May 16, 2023 04:39
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Cat Hatter posted:Pulling stuff behind a boat involves more force than you'd think. I had a cheap carabiner I used once to pull a wakeboarder behind a little pontoon boat and it bent into a perfect right angle, and tubes are even worse because they have more drag (make sure you buy the right rope and at least a carabiner with a weight rating). As a total noob ski boat owner, I at least know that hooking a tube to the tower is a big no no for exactly this reason.
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Dec 15, 2023 07:07
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