Good Bye Ol' Bessie - Long may she run

[sunvalleylaw]

Just a quick thread to pay my respects to Ol' Bessie, my '88 Seaswirl with the 120 Johnson that served as our family boat for many years before buying our new RLX. Bessie sold today to new owners, for lower elevation (snake river) fishing and what not. The RLX is an awesome boat, and a big upgrade, but have to pay respect where respect is due. Thanks Bessie, for all the family fun and adventures!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rockdog]

Doesn't matter what kind of boat it was, if there's laughs and smiles all around, it's done a good job.

[sunvalleylaw]

@rockdog Yep. True Dat. But she was (and is) a solid vessel. Decent freeboad without being excessive. Pretty decent slalom wake, small, but firmish with distinct edges, flat with no mounds or gullies. Good enough for kid wake boarding. Never tried surfing, what with the exposed prop off the outboard. But gave us plenty of fun. Great learning boat for the kids to learn a little about boat handling. Great on and off the beach with reverse steering available (dip the outboard just enough, and point the prop where you want to go), very good rough water handling. Very solid hull (not the lightest in the world at over 2500 lbs.) and felt very, well solid. Fittings, cleats, rails, etc. were strong and solid also with no 80's Bayliner-esque falling apart nonsense. The old oil but not fuel injected Johnson just ran and ran. unplugged the battery and put some fuel stabilizer in each fall and that was about it. Plus, all the fun times as you see with the kid pics there. She did not pull well up high at all, and I could slow her down with a decent pull significantly. The Response is a huge upgrade. But again, respect where respect is due.

[Edbrazil]

I think that most all of us remember our first boat that could pull skiing. Mine was a 13' Glasspar G3, circa 1957, with a 40hp Evinrude outboard motor. No ski hitch. Had to put in a lightweight commercial hitch, which tended to fail.

Later, upgraded to a 75hp, to make it sort of capable of pulling Slalom and Jumping.

[BOS_Shirts]

That 2.0L OMC V4 is a great motor! More displacement than the older 1632cc V4 series and rated to spin to 6K rpm.

[sunvalleylaw]

@BOS_Shirts , at altitude, I was rapping it out to about 57-5800 at full throttle to try to pull me at 34 or so. I kept thinking I was going to break the poor thing using it like that. But it never complained, and still seems to run strong. New owner called today after his maiden voyage and said it ran well for him. It seemed a good ol' motor. Pretty good for a carbed, oil injected 2 cycle.

[UWSkier]

That's what's so awesome about old boats. They are good for so many memories! Friend of mine just posted a video of her 5 year old learning to ski behind my family's old '88 Concord Outboard. That's the boat that taught my dad to barefoot, my siblings and I all to ski, countless friends and family members... We sold it in 2001 but it's still going strong making memories for a third generation.

[6balls]

Super cool. We had a 13.5 foot Switzer with a 140...lots of memories. Funny it never seemed small but now I think holy crap...13.5 feet??? Went to outboard barefoot boats...first inboard I owned was 2010 prior to that saw inboards at tourneys only.

 

Love to see the story, also love to see graduation to a real ski boat. Congrats. You will always miss Bessie--which strangely enough was the nick-name for the beat up car that @razorskier1 and my bro Joe drove in high school that towed our boat so frequently back and forth to the river. Had glass packs and would backfire like hell after downshifting on the way down the hill to the marina and launch.