John Platou, Jeff Workman and Adam Finn prepared a fine Wet Meet (Capital ‘WET’) event for us all. To see all the photos in the gallery,Click Here! A few runs were made before the skies opened up late morning. Luckily the Indian Shores Community Center building provided a big wraparound porch for gabbing and a large indoor dining area as well as clean indoor restrooms.
This is a great venue location for our club and we could easily accommodate a much larger group. There is plenty of space for families to assemble. We ended up with right at 31 people which was great considering the weather.
Dock space was more than adequate and every boat could tie up to the dock or bulkhead.
Adam and Suzie Finn assisted by Clinton Russell served up a tasty lunch of grilled jumbo hotdogs and Suzie Finn’s Excellent Chili. Other fixin’s included fritos, watermelon, cookies and drinks. New item on the menu was a tasty local craft beer.
After lunch the heavens dried up a bit and more folks launched.
John Platou brought a fleet including his Cruisers Inc w/ ’60 Evinrude 75 hp, but he kept it on the trailer in lieu of helping other folks with mechanical and structural fixes. In the water John had his Jon boat with newer 4 cy Merc 25. Additionally he and granddaughter Emma Bayless had her Minimost hydro on hand with the 10 hp Evinrude Sportwin. He also brought over the original 8′ pram dinghy which is the finish-painted Kids Build a Boat Template boat and offered free rowing lessons.
Jeff and Laurie Workman brought their Pontoon with a super quiet newer Merc 90ho 4-stroke and ran that boat throughout the day giving rides to all that wanted.
Jeff Workman also delivered a beautiful job to me of restoring the lower cowls on my Merc KE-7. What a superb craftsman in metal! Thanks Jeff, those cowls look great!
Bob Macaluso and son Brenden launched Bob’s beautiful Crosby with the Lark 40 after lunch and made several fly-by runs hoping yours truly would capture that “One Shot” picture to end all pictures. That didn’t happen due to my flummoxing with my camera zoom feature, but the boat looked and sounded nice on the water.
Dan and Misty Peoples brought their Port-a-Boat and assembled it before our very eyes with many helping hands. The transom clamps on his ’55 Johnson 10 hp wouldn’t straddle a newly beefed-up transom plate, so John Platou dashed home made a marine plywood replacement and Dan launched without further problems.
Jeff Workman’s friend Dennis Panoski brought his Lone Star with a ’56 15 horse Johnson that needed a missing part to start. Again John Platou came to the rescue by robbing the part from the 10 hp on the Minimost. And away launched Dennis!!
John Slator brought some motors, controls, as parts and tanks. Seems I almost always need something in John’s parts pile.
David Coffey Jr and Sr were both on hand with Junior enthusiastically offering assistance to all. David Jr also showed off his newly acquired ’70s vintage Mercury 25SS racing motor.
Tom Oncken rivaled John with a truck load of motors, parts and shrouds he claimed were part of his downsizing efforts. Member Todd Cook took home many freebie items that tom offered to a good home. Tom’s friend Jerry Ball was intently interested in all the happenings and was fired up about our motor hobby.
New member Morten Lovstad made contact with Adam. Other members were present but boatless and/or motorless including Rich Kairis, Todd Cook, Captain Gary Keeney, Mark Betner and yours truly armed with my un-mastered Fuji camera.
Alan Bischoff, our senior Kids Build a Boat coach was also on hand to enjoy the festivities.
For the boatless, there was plenty of friendly gabbing and visiting. Spouses Cindy Slator and Suzie Finn caught up and shared about the recent Lake Catherine meet. It was just a nice day to just sit and relax and a good time was had by all.