Offshoreonly.com - New guy with 242 questions

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I'm working on a friend of mines dad who has a single engine formula. I believe it's a 242. Convincing him to sell it is not work too well yet.

At least you didn't waste a trip that involves a minimum of two days travel and several hundred $ in gasoline !! As I may have said earlier in this thread...this boat has been on Craigslist down here for a few years. According to the story...the boat came from Michigan a few years back. What always caught my eye was that most, of if not all of the pictures were taken in Michigan in the Fall of the year....we don't have Maple and Oak trees in South Florida !! Note also that there aren't any pics with a FL registration....only MC. So I wonder if the pics are truly representative of the boat's current condition.

Trust me...with as many smart Formula fans that there are down here....if that was a "Super Deal" it would have been gone months ago.

In all fairness...the older "Flat Glass" classic Formulas aren't as popular here as the multiple outboard center console boats. Most of the younger boating crowd in this market are looking for "Turn Key" condition outboards that all they have to do is put it in the water and go.

Be very dubious about the condition of any thing but the highest quality brands when you are looking at 25+ and older boats. The brands I have seen stand the test of time are Cobalt, Formula, Four Winns, Donzi, Cigarette, Magnum and Apache. Most of the others are stapled together production boats that were never meant to last more than 10 years.

If you haven't already, read some of David Pascoe's books on fiberglass boats.

Good luck with your search.

Very true. I wI'll continue to work on the guy I know local that has had his for over 20 years. He had the transom replaced as well as a new 454 built and dropped in a few years back. Maybe he will be willing to sell since he never uses it anymore.

On another note, I dont think your trailer will work for the deep v on a 242 the way it's set up right now. The bunks are too far apart and not tall enough with the straight axles on your trailer. My trailer has the bunks 40 inches apart with th top 12 inches above the axle. this spacing also puts the support closer to the stringers. Happy hunting!

I had him a measure the Hull for me whIle I was looking at the trailer and it would have worked so that's why I got it and put new boards on it. I had plans to put 2 more board lower down the v once I got it home but the 2 that are on it right now are 50" apart which would have sat right on the flat spots at the top of the v and it only had 10.5" of rise from the bottom of the v to there. The trailer has 15" of clearance.

Been talking to my friends dad about his and he isn't quite ready to cut loose but did tell me his brother has one he put a big silly 502 in that grenaded. I talked to him this morning. Going to check that one out this evening. It's a 90 242 sr1 he purchased from the original owner (a friend of his) back in the 90s. Then as we all do he wanted to make it faster and had the 17k engine built for it. SaI'd it was stupid fast to be such a heavy boat, obviously no engine now lol. I could probably build a nice reliable engine and have a good ride.

I think the big difference between the Ls and the SR1 was the SR1's had stand up bolsters. That would be a good deal if you could get the boat without an engine. Just make sure you get all the accessories. (Bellhousing, PS pump, exhaust manifolds, risers, throttle linkage and brackets, flywheel and coupler). If you could get the engine with the boat, tell the guy you will take the accessories off and give him back the engine.

Sprinks has it right with the older pictures. I think the only ones that show the current condition is the deck, engine and hull bottom pictures.

And he's right, if it was s super deal it would have been gone.

I Found a 30' S-Type Scarab that had the same paint as mine, talked to the guy on the phone. Sounded like a good deal for a boat that needed motors,(5K I think), then asked on here if anyone knew about it. Found out the upholstery was shot, transom and stringers were going bad. Someone had already looked at it before and it was not as good as the seller had said.

That would have sucked to get there to find a boat all full of leaves and rotten. I was lucky with the Sea Ray 240 Fly Bridge I bought last summer. I saw it on Ebay a year earlier from a previous seller, and got up-to-date pictures of the boat from the current owner and compared them to what it looked like a year ago. I talked to the guy a lot on the phone and got as much info out of him as I could about the condition of the boat. I think the key to it was I approached him about selling it. He was not using it and it sat on a trailer for most of its life. Plus the guy was running for County Sheriff and knew how much his reputation was at stake. He was honest and upfront about everything he knew was wrong with the boat and in the end the things I found wrong with it were things I knew I could do.

What's your budget for this project?

Budget? Can't really say there is a budget, I just don't want to drop 15-20k on one I know nothing at all about then have it grenade the 2nd time on the water. I want something that had either been taken care of or redone with attention to detail. This one being that I have known the owner for years, owned a few of his trucks, worked with him and been out on some of his other boats I know how he is and when he does any kind of repair it is generally an upgrade or an oem part. The man has plenty of funds and doesn't mind spending them. Hes just got to the point where he no longer fools with this one and went the center console route.

That said what do you guys value this one at as it sits? He has a ton of motor parts I haven't seen yet. He will get a little list together and send to me of the parts and what not. It has a hydraulic steering set up on it as well.