As some of you may know, I live on a sailboat. I got a new (to me) boat last year, a 32 foot Pearson with a nice Volvo Penta diesel. A big step down in size from the 46 foot Alden monster that I took around for a full lap a decade or more ago. I liked the old boat but it was too big to single handed sail and since my daughter has become an ancient woman in her twenties (Gad!) she is not that interested in being my galley slave and crew on any long trips.

Anyhow, the Pearson was fine... is fine.... notice how I'm beginning to weasel about the new boat?... but I've been secretly lusting for one of my old time "dream boats"... a Piver Tri. Not one of those big Cats with the giant price tags, but an older Piver trimaran. With maybe trampoline netting between the hulls (!). Yeah!

Now... there's a 31 foot Piver in the Sailboat Trader down in Marathon with one of the small 28 hp Perkins down in her gizzard. The picture in the Trader looks like it has a hard top cockpit. Hmmm. And the price is right. Hmmm.

I'm gonna call them and see what's wrong with it. I think that it's gonna be a nice weekend, lots of sunshine. I wouldn't mind making a screaming hop down to Marathon and take along my swimmies to look at the hull. They have a very nice little airport there that I've slipped into in the past. Hmmm. It's only about an hour and a half down there on a VFR day like Sunday. Hmmm. A nice jump in the Velocity (my other toy... a 140 Lycoming pushing a canard style gasbomb at 180 knots! Whee).

Gee... an old time Piver Trimaran! I remember taking one of those things around from Tampa to Cocoa twenty five years ago. It was a screamer. The thing loafed along at about 10 knots and never even seemed to be straining. I also remember the guy had a coil of refrigerator tubing strung through the 10 gallon water tank that made it ice cold with a tap right there in the cockpit. What genius!

Hmmmm... a cheap Piver. Hmmm.

Bob

(To hell with Iraq. Let them get their own sailboat Viagra! I think that I'll maybe go flying down to the keys this weekend. The buying fever is upon me.)