Epay Stories - 1975 Reinell 26 Sailboat, Page 2

previous summer showing the boat being sailed and motored around. It had a small outboard motor to use around the dock and a larger motor to cruise with. Uncle Fred said we would use both as well as the sails. When he wanted a different boat, he intended to "part out" the boat by selling off the parts of it on Epay. He reckoned the parts would be worth much more than the whole boat itself.

  "I did a little cleaning on it although it was in pretty good shape after not having been used for a year. The owner had died and his wife finally sold it when it made it to the top of her list of things to get rid of. Where it was parked it was near the edge of the storage lot next to a large field. There must have been a lot of mice in the field that decided the boat was a good place to make a nest. I found a lot of mouse traces but the mice must have found a better place to live because there were no mice, just their dirt."

  A few weeks before we were to leave Uncle Fred gave me a long list of things to check and test on the boat. Maybe I should have told him that I was really busy with a term paper and a science project as well as studying for pre-break exams. The teachers seemed to think that we would forget everything we had learned over spring break so they wanted us to take the required state ranking tests before the break. A week before the break I took the list to the boat.

  Fire extinguisher? Sure, two of them. These weren't the carbon dioxide ones though. Those are really great for making canned drinks cold in a hurry. When I was much younger we used the one in the garage to chill some cokes in the summer. Then the lawnmower caught fire so my dad tried to put it out with the fire extinguisher, but it was empty. The mower was bad anyway or it would not have caught fire. I just cleaned off the two on the boat and did not do anything else with them.

  Flare gun? Check, with two flares. I was tempted to fire one of them but I resisted. I would save that for the Fourth of July. I would hate to have an emergency on the lake on Fourth of July evening. I can see all the people on the shore pointing to the flares and saying, "Nice fireworks!"

  Small axe. In place in its holder. Why have an axe on a boat? There are not many trees on a lake but maybe we would use it to chop wood if we stopped someplace to make a bonfire

  Fuel for the motors. I knew we would fill the large tank for the larger motor after we had the boat in the water but I brought the plastic gas container from our garage with the fuel we used for the edger, mower, and blower.. There was still plenty from the previous fall so I used it to fill the tank of the outboard. I had seen the video of the boat running so I knew the small motor was good and would start.

  Car battery for the lights and to power some of the electronics like the depth gauge. It looked pretty new so no worry. I flipped the light switch on and saw that the running lights came on.

  Trailer tires? All there and none of them were flat. Some of them could use some air in them but we could do that at a gas station on the way. I even took some car wash and cleaned up the outside of the boat so it looked like new. There was a .410 gauge shotgun on the list but Uncle Fred had that at his house. I could see us shooting a duck or two, then roasting them on the fire we built on a small island we would stop at. The more I thought about it the more excited I became..