Instigator

I just bought a boat from Michigan. I had it surveyed prior to purchasing. I would advise anyone (even if you have a good sense of boats) to have the boat surveyed by and accredited marine surveyor such as a SAMS (Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors) member. They go through an awfull lot of training, and have specialized equipment to test the fibreglass for moisture content as well as other things. I talked to several in the area that I bought the boat and they all charged by the foot. You can go to marinesurvey.org and punch in the zip code or city and it will give you a list close to where your boat is. I had my Tiara surveyed, sea trialed and compression check done on the engines for $525.00 and I'd do it again in a heart beat. A good friend of mine had a boat surveyed in Michigan at the same time. His "looked" like an awesome boat. The survey came back with some major deficiencys. Needless to say that boat is still in Michigan. That particular surveyor called while on the boat to go over the problem list. At that time it was decided to stop the survey, he was charged a nominal fee and the search for another boat continues... Just my $00.02

Funny this topic comes up now. I have five year old Mason 7 strand on my diver rods. Always wondered what the life expectancy was for it. Never had any problems with it, no frays or break offs in 5 years, I always check terminations and look for frays every time I deploy them. Last weekend I broke off a diver and flasher fly rig off of each of my rods and found another fray on one. Pretty good wake up call for me. 2 new spools of wire on order right now. Good Luck.

Nice job on the reports Nick, I too enjoyed fishing with you all week.

My last boat was a 1993 Starcraft Islander 191v. I also had problems getting speed down, and the throttle lever was very difficult to adjust "Just Right". I installed a trolling plate on the outdrive and that helped out alot especially trolling for walleye. I ordered a Hydro Troll trolling plate from cabelas. It had shear pins so that if you forgot to bring it up after trolling, the prop thrust from coming up on plane wouldn't break anything. I don't see that particular plate on cabelas web site any more, but they still have the shear pins. I would imagine someone still makes that one. I never did get the throttle lever loostened up before I moved to a biger boat with different problems. Good luck, the Islander was a great overall boat though.

Next time out on the water and the boat starts to wander, send someone up front as far as they can go. See if the wander decreases. Moving weight forward typically corrects for yaw. It sounds funny, but I added 200lbs of weight to the bow of my 25ft Wellcraft and "most" of the yaw went away. It rides a little nicer now too. It's worth a shot.

Not sure where you are located, but Wes at the Slippery Sinker in Olcott has one. I almost bought it. I had to send mine in for service but was lucky enough to borrow a friends spare for a few weeks. If its still there, he wanted $169.99. Which is cheaper than buying direct from Moor.

I think that I have one. I'll have to dig around a little. Send me a PM.

The part number was not on their web site. I had to call and talk to someone at Fish 307. 1-800-347-4307

Ray, I bought 2 earlier this spring from Fish 307. They were about $8.00 each if I remember correctly. They shipped them, and I had them in a couple of days.