Back in early 2000 I even purchased a rib that was used at CGRA, WSC, and VLSC. Found this boat on boatrader.com. A lady down in Florida was selling it, as her husband had passed away. She was 18 ft long with a trailer and little under powered with a 40 HP yamaha. I made an offer to her, contingent on coming to view the boat. Gave her a $500 deposit, and then just had to figure out how to get the boat back to PDX.
After researching on autotrader.com, I found out there was 5 times as many mini vans in the tampa st pete area as any where else in the country. I figured this was because of the influx of retiree’s into the area. So bought a one way ticket on united with my miles, flew over to tampa and rented a small cheap car. Went and checked out the boat, and bought it. Then spent the next day driving around to three different car lots looking at three specific mini vans that I could use to tow the boat home. At each car lot I kept saying the other guy was offering me this, and that I was paying cash. Ended up getting a two tone 4WD astro van with 38k miles on it for $8000 below blue book. Spent $200 putting a hitch on it and off I went driving across the country sleeping in the van.
