Houseboat Dreaming the Realization
Well it’s been along time coming and a lot of hard work but our floating boat camper is now wet. A lot of things along the way contributed to our desire to own our own houseboat getaway. The peace of mind of being able to float off into the sunset and live our own reality is an enormous relief to us and our continued well being.
Let’s back you up some so you’ll also understand where we’re coming from here. We’ve been boating for quite a few years together, and experienced a lot of wonderful memorial times on the water we’ll never ever forget. For years we’d load our pontoon boat in our driveway every weekend and then point our rig towards the destination we’d chosen to boat that weekend. We were free birds of sorts and it was wonderful to see and explore so many of the area’s rivers and lakes. Our pontoon boat is set up well for camping, and a person also can be pretty comfortable staying in it. But believe me it is a lot of work both before and after each trip getting things organized staged and ready before the weekend and then putting everything back away and spiffing the boat back up late every Sunday evening or early Monday morning. But since we’d never chosen or had a port to call home we lived with all the necessary inconveniences and made it work for us.
All of this in a since changed some time ago, when we found a river waterway we simply fell in love with and seemed and does have an abundance of good neighborly people on it and we desired to develop some roots on it also. So we found ourselves inquiring about joining an established boat club and marina on our chosen river, and fortunately a few established members though really strangers stood up for us and we were accepted in as the newbie’s. Life was good the first year with all our new surroundings and waters to explore and we made quite a few friends in the process. But the inconveniences of living on a pontoon boat were really starting to wear on us by the end of our first summer season. If you take the time and have the opportunity to read our other writings on this site you’ll see we faced and overcame avast amount of obstacles in our search and desire to find own and build our new found water haven and getaway.
Now that we’ve managed to launch her and the anticipation and worry about a few potential problems that could still have been big ugly issues have proven nil and void.We are happily enjoying all our time on our boat. Throughout the entire rebuild I wanted a very structurally sound boat and refused to compromise the integrity of the overall boat to save on overall final weight of the boat. I had to put a lot of thought into this whole issue throughout the entire rebuild and even then until the moment we splashed her I was still concerned, and wondered whether I’d managed to get it right or not. It was such an overall relief to see her float off the trailer and sit and rest on the water almost matching the preexisting water lines that were still visible on the pontoons from before the rebuild. Personally I don’t know what I could or would have done if the pontoons would have submerged under all the weight of our new freshly rebuilt boat, and I’m just so grateful that everything came out good and it floated off so well.
The next worry about a maiden launch was our brand new Yamaha outboard motor I’d just installed in our driveway. Our new crate outboard was delivered right to our house via truck freight in an untouched and unopened condition. Boy was I in for a surprise when I went looking the other needed hardware to make this engine work. I had no idea of the costs, and the variety of the necessary harnesses,controls and gauges for Yamaha outboard motors. Our nearest Yamaha dealer is a good hour’s drive from our place also, which makes it inconvenient for us to utilize his services. Fortunately when rummaging around on E-Bay for all the parts needed to make this motor work for us I was lucky enough to find a good seller who was sympathetic to our needs, and went out of his way to supply us with everything we needed to make it all work. And as an added bonus all the parts were about half the price quoted to us by the somewhat (if you can call that) local Yamaha outboard dealer. We knew the motor ran when the boat left the driveway for we had started it on muffs in the driveway after hooking up all the hardware. But as many of you are probably aware beside the fact that a motor runs and idles well, there is not much more you’re going to learn about it when hooked to a garden hose. So when we backed her into the river and hit the key and she fired right up and proceeded to pull the boat off the trailer under power real well, and it then proceeded to move the boat upriver at a decent pace, well life was then good from the captain’s chair.
Picture of our Pontoon Houseboat at our Marina on the Muskingum River, Zanesville, Oh. Other Photo's of our restoration Here
Well we weren’t too long at the marina after making a brief trial run on up the Muskingum River to gently take it through its paces a little bit and ensure all operational systems were good to go. I’d like to report that our first weekend excursion on our Pontoon Houseboat was a complete success. We soon found that our first chosen prop was not going to be the right one for our boat though. Gave plenty of power and RPM’s but it sure wouldn’t move the boat vary well without running the motor harder than was necessary or needed. We soon changed the prop out for another with more pitch to it, and now everything seems well with the world. Though a boat this size is not going to outrun much out there it does now move well. And as a bonus at the more fuel efficient lower RPM’s we usually run, it now moves well through the water with enough sufficient headway to satisfy us most of the time. And we now have plenty of throttle left for more speed should we want or feel we need it.
We’ve now spent two weekends on the river with our newly rebuilt houseboat and I’m happy to report we’re completely satisfied with her and its performance so far. The wife says she has stowed everything onboard that she needs to feel comfortable and there is still a lot of good available stowage left, that in itself is some kind of a miracle.In our usage so far I’ve not found anything that I wish or regret building or doing differently, which is all too often the case when doing major projects such as this. But what’s going to be most enjoyable for us. We can now simply load a few necessary supplies needed for the weekend, untie our little houseboat from its mooring and float on off down the river and enjoy ourselves. So I guess all I can say is in every real way our dream was worth the reality the first time we cast off our lines and leave our life’s controversy behind us in our wake. Yes I guess it was worth all the sacrifices to have the opportunity to live and experience our dream.
Please also visit us at Pontoon Houseboat Odyssey or view our other Blogs here
Let’s back you up some so you’ll also understand where we’re coming from here. We’ve been boating for quite a few years together, and experienced a lot of wonderful memorial times on the water we’ll never ever forget. For years we’d load our pontoon boat in our driveway every weekend and then point our rig towards the destination we’d chosen to boat that weekend. We were free birds of sorts and it was wonderful to see and explore so many of the area’s rivers and lakes. Our pontoon boat is set up well for camping, and a person also can be pretty comfortable staying in it. But believe me it is a lot of work both before and after each trip getting things organized staged and ready before the weekend and then putting everything back away and spiffing the boat back up late every Sunday evening or early Monday morning. But since we’d never chosen or had a port to call home we lived with all the necessary inconveniences and made it work for us.
All of this in a since changed some time ago, when we found a river waterway we simply fell in love with and seemed and does have an abundance of good neighborly people on it and we desired to develop some roots on it also. So we found ourselves inquiring about joining an established boat club and marina on our chosen river, and fortunately a few established members though really strangers stood up for us and we were accepted in as the newbie’s. Life was good the first year with all our new surroundings and waters to explore and we made quite a few friends in the process. But the inconveniences of living on a pontoon boat were really starting to wear on us by the end of our first summer season. If you take the time and have the opportunity to read our other writings on this site you’ll see we faced and overcame avast amount of obstacles in our search and desire to find own and build our new found water haven and getaway.
Now that we’ve managed to launch her and the anticipation and worry about a few potential problems that could still have been big ugly issues have proven nil and void.We are happily enjoying all our time on our boat. Throughout the entire rebuild I wanted a very structurally sound boat and refused to compromise the integrity of the overall boat to save on overall final weight of the boat. I had to put a lot of thought into this whole issue throughout the entire rebuild and even then until the moment we splashed her I was still concerned, and wondered whether I’d managed to get it right or not. It was such an overall relief to see her float off the trailer and sit and rest on the water almost matching the preexisting water lines that were still visible on the pontoons from before the rebuild. Personally I don’t know what I could or would have done if the pontoons would have submerged under all the weight of our new freshly rebuilt boat, and I’m just so grateful that everything came out good and it floated off so well.
The next worry about a maiden launch was our brand new Yamaha outboard motor I’d just installed in our driveway. Our new crate outboard was delivered right to our house via truck freight in an untouched and unopened condition. Boy was I in for a surprise when I went looking the other needed hardware to make this engine work. I had no idea of the costs, and the variety of the necessary harnesses,controls and gauges for Yamaha outboard motors. Our nearest Yamaha dealer is a good hour’s drive from our place also, which makes it inconvenient for us to utilize his services. Fortunately when rummaging around on E-Bay for all the parts needed to make this motor work for us I was lucky enough to find a good seller who was sympathetic to our needs, and went out of his way to supply us with everything we needed to make it all work. And as an added bonus all the parts were about half the price quoted to us by the somewhat (if you can call that) local Yamaha outboard dealer. We knew the motor ran when the boat left the driveway for we had started it on muffs in the driveway after hooking up all the hardware. But as many of you are probably aware beside the fact that a motor runs and idles well, there is not much more you’re going to learn about it when hooked to a garden hose. So when we backed her into the river and hit the key and she fired right up and proceeded to pull the boat off the trailer under power real well, and it then proceeded to move the boat upriver at a decent pace, well life was then good from the captain’s chair.
Picture of our Pontoon Houseboat at our Marina on the Muskingum River, Zanesville, Oh. Other Photo's of our restoration Here
Well we weren’t too long at the marina after making a brief trial run on up the Muskingum River to gently take it through its paces a little bit and ensure all operational systems were good to go. I’d like to report that our first weekend excursion on our Pontoon Houseboat was a complete success. We soon found that our first chosen prop was not going to be the right one for our boat though. Gave plenty of power and RPM’s but it sure wouldn’t move the boat vary well without running the motor harder than was necessary or needed. We soon changed the prop out for another with more pitch to it, and now everything seems well with the world. Though a boat this size is not going to outrun much out there it does now move well. And as a bonus at the more fuel efficient lower RPM’s we usually run, it now moves well through the water with enough sufficient headway to satisfy us most of the time. And we now have plenty of throttle left for more speed should we want or feel we need it.
We’ve now spent two weekends on the river with our newly rebuilt houseboat and I’m happy to report we’re completely satisfied with her and its performance so far. The wife says she has stowed everything onboard that she needs to feel comfortable and there is still a lot of good available stowage left, that in itself is some kind of a miracle.In our usage so far I’ve not found anything that I wish or regret building or doing differently, which is all too often the case when doing major projects such as this. But what’s going to be most enjoyable for us. We can now simply load a few necessary supplies needed for the weekend, untie our little houseboat from its mooring and float on off down the river and enjoy ourselves. So I guess all I can say is in every real way our dream was worth the reality the first time we cast off our lines and leave our life’s controversy behind us in our wake. Yes I guess it was worth all the sacrifices to have the opportunity to live and experience our dream.
Please also visit us at Pontoon Houseboat Odyssey or view our other Blogs here
Posted by blog.houseboatodyssey1.com at 6/21/2009 1:13 PM 
Categories: Article, Boating, Pontoon Houseboat (s), Muskingum River, Houseboat (s)
Tags: River boat boating marina houseboat pontoon picture article Muskingum
Categories: Article, Boating, Pontoon Houseboat (s), Muskingum River, Houseboat (s)
Tags: River boat boating marina houseboat pontoon picture article Muskingum
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