This is my second quick trip to Puckaway this week; I was just here on Tuesday to take down the screen tent and grab some accessories for the pop-up camper. Hannah and I drove in around 4:15 pm and I headed straight for the pole barn to start pulling things out of the back corner. We’re meeting a potential buyer today for the old Larson boat.

While I would have loved to restore this thing myself one day, it takes up a ton of room in the pole barn and hasn’t run since before I was born. It would take a lot more time, money, effort, and knowledge than I have right now. Last week, I put the boat on craigslist and got a few non-spam responses, but one person had a lot of interest and said he’d be able to pick up right away if he was going to buy.

I was still getting things out of the pole barn at 4:50 when Dad showed up. He had some deliveries to make in the area anyway and figured he’d stop by and meet the guy. He didn’t have to wait long; Matt showed up at 5:00 on the dot.

He turned out to be a really nice guy and made a fair offer we were happy to accept. The three of us BSed for a bit before Dad had to head out to make his deliveries. That’s when Matt got to work. He came fully prepared; his truck was full of tools, new tires and wheels for the boat trailer, and grease to repack the bearings. He also had a lightbar to mount to the boat as he correctly assumed the trailer wiring wasn’t operational.

I kept busy reorganizing the pole barn while Matt prepped the boat trailer. He’s more interested in the Mercury outboard than the boat, but seems fairly confident he can restore both to working order. He showed me a few pictures from past boat restorations and he’s got a real talent for it. He promised to keep in touch and send pictures of his progress.

Matt was done with the trailer and on his way back to the Waukesha area around 6:30. I finished cleaning up in the pole barn and put some things away in the keep, then Hannah and I left about 20 minutes later. Definitely looking forward to making more pole barn progress now that we’ve got the extra room.

  • I love that it’s so open here now.
  • Matt came prepared.
  • The vicious Puckaway junkyard dog.
  • Where we’re going, we don’t need trailer lights.
  • This freed up a lot of room in the pole barn.
  • Someone flew a drone overhead while we were there. Time to build an EMP cannon.

Update

I got some pictures from Matt of the progress so far. He’s got the boat just about done and is now focusing on the outboard. He was able to restore it to the factory right-hand drive (either my grandpa or his buddy Chick must have done the left-hand conversion) and has it sparkling like new.