mattkab
Senior Member
Hi all.
I've been lurking and reading posts here for a few months, but now that I've actually placed a check in the mail, I feel that I should introduce myself. My name is Matt, my wife is Megan, and our daughter is Taylor. We cruise out of Tacoma, WA for most of the year.
Last week we purchased a 1983 Fu Hwa Europa Seahorse. I read the thread about what is, and what is not a Europa trawler, but since the owners manual calls this boat a Europa, I'm going with that.
This is my wife and my 4th real boat (not including canoes, dinghys, cartoppable sailboats, etc). Our first boat was*a 1979 Catalina 28 Sailboat that we owned for just over a year. We then traded up to a 1986 Catalina 30 Sailboat which we owned for almost 5 years. When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we decided to sell the sailboat and get a smaller boat designed more for daytrips and quick outings that can get to a destination quickly, so we purchased a 1987 28' Bayliner Contessa. We still own the Bayliner, but have listed it with Gig Harbor Yacht Sales, so if anyone is interesed...
In August, we were visiting friends near Oak Harbor, and were walking the docks looking at boats. I happened to come up on one particular trawler, and mentioned to the folks we were staying at that in a year or two that was exactly the type of boat that we were looking at purchasing in another year or two.... and thought nothing of it.
In November, we got a phone call from our friends. It turns out, he knew the owner of that trawler, and the current owner was thinking of getting rid of it so that he could purchase a smaller Nordic Tug. Over the course of a few weeks, we looked into it, and it turns out that this boat was too perfect a fit for us to pass up on... so as I said in the beginning, last week we put the checks in the mail.
I've attached a few pictures of the boat, as well as a youtube vid I took during the survey. It's*not exactly thrilling video, but it's a pretty good look at the boat.
[video=[MEDIA=youtube]5cosZmog2pk[/MEDIA]]
I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions over time... but maybe I can help as well. In our previous boats, we've redone upholstery (new foam, new*covers) and carpet, we've rebuilt head systems (new head, new holding tank, new hoses), we've rewired helm station (fixing bad tachs, poor connections, and replicating the fishfinder mount for both stations), and I've built a 10' sailing dinghy in my garage using the stitch-and-glue method.
I'm a software engineer by trade, currently self-employed, and hope to leverage that knowledge in our boating hobby; one of my first projects is to figure out how to do a weather/charting/multi-media system using cheap 7-10" android displays throughout the boat. There's no reason, IMO, to spend $2k for a commercial system, when you can put one together for a couple hundred dollars worth of hardware and freely downloadable software... but we can get into that project at a later time.
*
I've been lurking and reading posts here for a few months, but now that I've actually placed a check in the mail, I feel that I should introduce myself. My name is Matt, my wife is Megan, and our daughter is Taylor. We cruise out of Tacoma, WA for most of the year.
Last week we purchased a 1983 Fu Hwa Europa Seahorse. I read the thread about what is, and what is not a Europa trawler, but since the owners manual calls this boat a Europa, I'm going with that.
This is my wife and my 4th real boat (not including canoes, dinghys, cartoppable sailboats, etc). Our first boat was*a 1979 Catalina 28 Sailboat that we owned for just over a year. We then traded up to a 1986 Catalina 30 Sailboat which we owned for almost 5 years. When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we decided to sell the sailboat and get a smaller boat designed more for daytrips and quick outings that can get to a destination quickly, so we purchased a 1987 28' Bayliner Contessa. We still own the Bayliner, but have listed it with Gig Harbor Yacht Sales, so if anyone is interesed...
In August, we were visiting friends near Oak Harbor, and were walking the docks looking at boats. I happened to come up on one particular trawler, and mentioned to the folks we were staying at that in a year or two that was exactly the type of boat that we were looking at purchasing in another year or two.... and thought nothing of it.
In November, we got a phone call from our friends. It turns out, he knew the owner of that trawler, and the current owner was thinking of getting rid of it so that he could purchase a smaller Nordic Tug. Over the course of a few weeks, we looked into it, and it turns out that this boat was too perfect a fit for us to pass up on... so as I said in the beginning, last week we put the checks in the mail.
I've attached a few pictures of the boat, as well as a youtube vid I took during the survey. It's*not exactly thrilling video, but it's a pretty good look at the boat.
[video=[MEDIA=youtube]5cosZmog2pk[/MEDIA]]
I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions over time... but maybe I can help as well. In our previous boats, we've redone upholstery (new foam, new*covers) and carpet, we've rebuilt head systems (new head, new holding tank, new hoses), we've rewired helm station (fixing bad tachs, poor connections, and replicating the fishfinder mount for both stations), and I've built a 10' sailing dinghy in my garage using the stitch-and-glue method.
I'm a software engineer by trade, currently self-employed, and hope to leverage that knowledge in our boating hobby; one of my first projects is to figure out how to do a weather/charting/multi-media system using cheap 7-10" android displays throughout the boat. There's no reason, IMO, to spend $2k for a commercial system, when you can put one together for a couple hundred dollars worth of hardware and freely downloadable software... but we can get into that project at a later time.
*