How I Found This Sailboat

Article By Shorty


Here she is, sitting out back of a boyscout camp in Conroe. She had been completely stripped of almost everything that could be removed. The mast and sail rig were gone, the cleats were removed, even the rudder gudgeon were removed.

I talked to the head of the scouts boat program, and this boat was supposed to have been chopped up and destroyed, but the volunteers had not gotten around to doing it yet.

So I offered to haul the hull away if they would give her to me for free.

Getting a title was a bit of a challenge, the boyscouts didn't have one for it. I first ran the TX number and it came back as someone in Houston.

I called them and talked to them about the boat, they said they had sold it to someone else, but had a better boat to sell me (can't remember the type). I explained that this was the one I was interested in, so he gave me the name of the person who bought it.

So I called this next guy and said that I was interested in the boat. He told me he would be glad to sell it for $5000, but he was in the process of restoring it and really wanted to finish it before selling. I asked if he had seen the boat lately, because it was completely stripped, and laying in a field up in Conroe. He sounded rather panicked, and said would call me back in just a minute. Moments later, he called me back and said that the boat was just fine, sitting behind his garage and in great shape. Hmmm.... this is wierd. So I asked him to describe it to me -- he said it was a solid blue hull, white deck, wood trim, and was an oday 19 mariner. Ah HA! Then it became clear, someone had seen his boat and just put the same TX numbers on the bow of the hull I wanted so they didn't have to register it properly. I then described the hull I was trying to get, and some of my plans for it, and he proceeded to tell me that I was a luzer, my ideas woudln't work, and I wasn't a real sailor. A bit of a snot, but before I could thank him for his help, he hung up on me.

Back to the boat, I found the hull hull number and ran it at TX parks, and they showed that it was last registered in Texas in 1990 to "Lakewoodyacht Club"
I was just about to call them, but before I did that, I saw a ghost of an image for Louisana numbers that were on the hull. So I called LA Parks, and they showed the hull last registered there in 1999, to the Boy Scouts !! HA! So I got a copy of their registration, and with a bill of sale from the boyscouts, and a pencil tracing of the hull number, I was able to get her registered here in Texas.

I showed pictures of her to a few of my friends, one of them who was building a 16' Michalak boat just got his hull 3D, and commented that I was very brave to take on this project. I joked that my hull was actually further along than his. :) Brings up a good point, I enjoy boat building, and bring a hull like this back to life is sort of a good half way point between building from scratch, and buying a complete boat. I can have all the joy of putting together a boat, but start with a complete hull.

Ironically, I had a picture of an oday 19 on my pocket cruiser guide for years, listed as a mystery boat and was searching for what it was.