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7/07

My nightfishing is lit by the new floodlight I rigged up from an unused emergency lighting floodlight from work. So much better than the way we used to have to nightfish years ago, with a dangerous, easily breakable Coleman lantern on a seat in the boat!
-JRW

7/03

I bought a 1957 Crestliner 15' a few years back and spruced it up some. It had a 40 horse Evinrude, so I paid $1600 for it. I couldn't get the motor to stay running so I bought a new 30 horse Johnson, I wanted to keep the weight down at the transom so I didn't get a bigger motor. And last night, on Lake Erie with a North wind, bucking those swells like a horse, at about 1/3 throttle, I was glad my transom wasn't weighed down more!

In the picture you can see I didn't do an original restoration. I have since added a spotlight up on the bow that can be pivoted up and down, and side to side with 2 lawnmower throttle cables. I also hooked up a removable floodlight on a 4 foot conduit pole for lighting the inside of the boat for nightfishing, around Toledo, Ohio.

I have to steel wool the exposed aluminum every year which is tedious elbow grease. I've tried acid wash, but it's hard to do it evenly to avoid streaking. Iím thinking about painting the top half of the sides the same blue color. I'd still leave the bow and gunwales bare, though, so they don't get scratched up. I stripped paint from some loose areas and primed with XIM primer sealer. Aluminum was mentioned in the directions on the can. Regular spray oil based or acrylic primer doesn't seem to be recommended.

I scrubbed my windshield with toothpaste which is barely acceptable. Right now I am repainting the varnished dashboard blue, and am hooking up a car stereo in the boat.. How do you charge your boat battery? No way did I want to take mine out of the boat every time I charge mine. I hooked up charging terminals at the transom with a switch so waves splashing wouldn't cause any conductance in the water. I do wish Crestliners were deep boats with a lot more freeboard than they have. I found it uncomfortable to walk on the original hull bottom, and couldn't set coolers, tackle boxes, etc. on the bottom very well. So I put plywood flooring in and carpeted it.

I'm not feeling at home at all on Lake Erie, or even Maumee Bay, in my 15 foot "Toy boat". I'm better off on the upstream areas of the Maumee River.

A fellow Crestliner owner and repairer,

Jeff Whicker, Toledo, Ohio

 Email: Jeffrey if you have any questions or comments about his 1957 15' Crestliner Voyager

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