You Never Forget Your First....

[Gerry Zagorski]

Boat of course

Mid 80's and I got an unexpected income tax refund.. Always wanted a boat, saw and ad in the local paper, went for a test drive and bought the boat for $4000... Then I went home and told the wife, which went over like a fart in church

A powder blue 1972 23 foot Cruisers with and old Vette motor in it coupled to an OMC electric shift stern drive and a fly bridge, complete with a slip for the rest of the season in Morgan Marina... I was in heaven!, well a least for a few days....

Finally convinced my wife Ruth under protest to take a ride, it was rough, she threw up, swore off the boat so I named it Ruthless

The boat actually ran pretty good, but that old OMC electric shift stern drive was probably the worst drive ever built. It had separate contols for the shift and throttle and the gear shift had a hair trigger... If you even breathed on the lever it would shift. The prop and shaft had a brass shear pin instead of a slip hub, so if the prop hit something, the pin would shear and not damage the gears in the drive. That darn shear pin would also shear if an inexperience boater like me touched the shift control instead of the the throttle while underway.... Needless to say, we carried a lot of shear pins and a mask around with us and in the water we went once a week replacing the shear pins.

Had the old drive rebuilt several times and the only place to get parts was at old man Zuback's shop.... Lets just say me and John were on a first name basis and I probably paid for his kids education. Blew the motor once but had a friend Gus at the time who was a real motor head and he and I rebuilt it ourselves when the crankshaft snapped. We also used a lot of Marine Tex back then to patch holes and repeair the old style bus heat exchanger that would corrode out in the same spot every year. We also broke down several times and year and I became really friedly with the Sea Tow guy too.

Me and brother Joe cut our teeth on that boat fishing areas like the Triangle, Princess Bay, Dental Works, Keansburg flats etc... The water was very dirty back then and hardly any Stripers... If you happend to catch one, a crowd would gather around you back at the dock and you were a hero.

Finally got a different boat and sold Ruthless. She was pretty used up and I think I got $500 for her, only beacuse she had a full tank of fuel.

We didn't know our asses from our elbows back then, but I wouldn't trade all those memories for anything.

[The Bill TM]

Now that is a priceless name for a boat!