My first owned boat is a story. While still just a Seaman Apprentice in the Coast Guard, at my first unit in Florida, Station Cortez, we were responding to a reported "hazard to navigation" which turned out to be a scuttled 18 foot runabout that was cracked amidships from port to starboard. We towed it back to the station, hauled it out over the seawall, causing more damage, and there it sat while we ran the HIN and FL numbers to find the owner to no avail. Finally, the OinC told us to take the chain saw to it and put it in the dumpster and get it the H E double hockey sticks off the station. I asked him if it just disappeared, would he mind. He did not, so with a little help from the morale officer (lending me the morale trailer) it ended up at my house where my wife and I spent days, no weeks, fiberglassing, painting and restoring this soggy broken hull. We had no, zip, zilch idea what we were doing, but in the end, it floated. Now for an engine.
Being a seaman apprentice and getting the most undesirable jobs, I got to clean out the Station's storage shed (keep in mind this is Florida with cockroaches the size of large Poodles). Way in the back I found a vintage, and I mean vintage old OMC pull cord outboard that you had to wrap the cord to start. It had all of 2.5 horses. If you touched the metal casing while steering it by hand, you felt all "tingly." When I found it, it didn't work. I asked the Chief, if it were to start working, could I use it while stationed here. It wasn't on inventory, had to be at least 30 years old, didn't seem right to discard it. He agreed, and so with a little help from the engineers, I had my 2.5 horse motor on my 18 foot runabout. Yes, it was slow. No, it didn't get on a plane. But by God we had a boat, and we had lots of fun on it and it is still the best boat I have ever had.