SOLD/EXPIRED (SOLD)1972 Mitchell Skiff, 25hp Tohatsu & 2003 Continental trailer

OK, I'm really doing this, asking $1600 for boat and trailer, if you want the engine it's another $1600 or $3K for the whole package. The motor is a 2004 that I received on a trade unused. I did the break-in and I would say it has less than 50 hours on it.

Many forum members here probably know this was a classic restoration project for me and the boat really does deserve to be restored. I picked it up in 1997 with the intentions of gutting it out and restoring it from the stringers up. However, I had so much fun fishing in it, I just never got around to taking it out of service long enough to re do it. There is a Mitchell Mojo thread with as many pic's as I could find of fish caught in it. http://www.microskiff.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1221189370/0#0

Then a job change came with a relocation and another new baby and you know the rest of the story. As the time passed I couldn't find the time to
get any momentum on it. However last summer I did remove the benchseats and floor and replaced them with a new layout using plywood coated with garage floor paint and non-skid particles on the exposed deck areas. A bit bush league for sure, but was only intended as a prototype until I could figure out how much fordeck and rear bench I wanted. There is a thread in the bragging section about that too.
http://www.microskiff.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1209781296/0

I'd say dimension and proportion wise it's about right  now and with modest care could be fished as is for a couple years or more. If you want to dive in and do it right though all the existing wood can be removed fairly easily by backing out dry-wall screws and then replacing it all with epoxy/glass coated marine ply, ideally light weight okoume. If you're really ambitious and want to make a mold, I would extend the transom about 18-20" to give it a bit more displacement and square up the chine a bit at the stern which will give it a better running pad without sacrificing the entry at the bow. The extra length at the keel would help it track better as extra length would help most any skiff in that regard. But it really is OK now if you just want to build on the hull as is.

Performance wise it runs about 27-28mph WOT with a 25HP as it's setup right now loaded with a couple  average sized guys, gear and a stock aluminum prop. The hull is USCG rated for 50hp though. I bought it and ran it with a 40hp for 10 years or so and that is plenty of power with about any load you'd want in there. With a 40HP you can expect 37-38mph. Like most skiffs it poles best from the bow, but can be poled from the stern too. It can be turned on a dime from either end.

Tom_in_orl is a forum founder/member that has spent the most time in it recently. You can PM him privately for his thoughts about it or he may chime in here too. Either way I have nothing to hide here, it really is a neat little skiff that fishes much bigger than it is. Any one that takes the time to restore it would be rewarded with a classic and great performing little skiff.

Here are a few pic's taken this weekend so you can see it exactly as it is at the moment. For any one interested if there is anything else I can tell you about it just let me know and I'll try my best. - eric








58" at the waterline



Bow platform is 60" bow to cockpit and 70" wide gunwale to gunwale.


Cockpit is 77" fore to aft, 50" at stern gunwale to gunwale and 56" under gunwale side to side. 18" deep at the stern seat and 18.5" deep at the rear of the casting platform. The stern seat is 15" from the sole.



Bow storage opening is 30" wide and 15" high, 17" high underneath sole to bottom of platform.


Either rear storage area is large enough for a 6gal gas tank. Center area has a little convenience shelf and still enough room for a full sized battery underneath.

 

Re: 1972 Mitchell Skiff, 25hp Tohatsu & 2003 Continental trailer

engine is no longer available, so we're back to hull and trailer only. - eric

 

Re: 1972 Mitchell Skiff, 25hp Tohatsu & 2003 Continental trailer

Well I haven't really sold anything except my hi-sider over the last 10 years so this has been an interesting endeavor to say the least. I've had some close calls so far and a very busy weekend with craigs list goof balls. I've come to learn craigs list takes the intardnet concept up several levels. One guy has offered me all kinds of deals too, everything but his wife for this thing.  : He still emails me twice a day so that could be next, but I want cash to fund the next ride. 

Any hoots along the way I've gone down to $1400 for the hull and trailer and $2800 with motor as a package....

 

Re: 1972 Mitchell Skiff, 25hp Tohatsu & 2003 Continental trailer

Its often said, the happiest day's of a mans life is the day he gets a new boat and then the day he sells it. Well, that old saw has been mostly true for me over the years but not quite true for me in this case. I was surely happy and excited the day I got this skiff.

I remember talking to the original owner Mr. Coe over the phone about buying it from him. Growing up as an avid and aspiring fisherman in the late 60's and early 70's I was well aware of the boats lineage and history. So while Mr. Coe was droning on about the break-frame Seminole Trailer and the pampered Yamaha 40HP and this and that, I was romancing the idea of stalking the bonefish flats of Biscayne Bay, throwing flies at snook in the potholes around Snake Bight and hooking tarpon on the flats in the keys with this skiff, while also managing to interject a polite question or two seemingly related to what ever he was saying at the time.

I'm not sure I remember telling him I wanted the skiff or not but some how we ended up fishing around West Arsenicker Keys in south Biscayne Bay. He and I were to take turns poling each other around in search of bonefish and permit.

Mr. Coe was a long time figure in the local Miami fishing scene and a resident of Key Biscayne. So he had enough stories and experiences for both of us. Me, well I had my own experiences and stories but I didn't run in his circles, partly because he was 30 years my senior and well... my grandmother owned a few acres of swamp on Miami Beach in the early 1940's and sold it all not long after because no one wanted it at the time. So that's about as close as I came to knowing anyone living on Key Biscayne. None the less, fishing knows no such social boundaries, so he and I talked as though we knew each other for years.

I guess we spent about a half a day stalking around out there and sharing stories of our past experiences, both there in the bay and also Flamingo and the Keys. We talked of the days before the Buttonwood canal was plugged, the times when a trip into Hells Bay was a very carefully planned endeavor as opposed to a half dozen waypoints on a GPS and something to try when the Shark River feeder creeks and estuaries weren't producing. All the while I just knew that skiff was listening to our banter. Laughing silently at the yarns and nodding along in agreement with the few truths scattered throughout the stories. There was money changing hands too, but that didn't matter to either of us. I don't think the skiff cared either. Other than a few bonnethead sharks, rays and needle fish, we didn't see much that morning, but a few relaxing hours on the water and great conversation with an old salt ended up sealing the deal on this skiff.

I wonder how many people can say they bought an old boat that way?

Living in Cutler Ridge at the time, south Biscayne Bay, Flamingo and the upper Keys was my playground with this skiff. I was 10 minutes from Black Point Marina, 25 minutes from Homestead Bayfront Park and about an hour and 15 minutes from ramps at Flamingo. My son was not quite two years old then too. Early on he was too young for the sun and mosquito's, but after we moved to the Tampa area I couldn't leave to go fishing without him. We shared countless hours together in that skiff. In nearly 12 years that skiff watched him grow from a toddler into a teenager. Probably laughing at his antics and nodding along in agreement with my sometimes ill fated attempts to pass on what knowledge and wisdom that I could. Too bad classic old skiffs can't talk or maybe its just as well they don't. Sometimes our jaded memories make for a better story anyway.

Today I sold the skiff to a nice fellow. Given the distances involved I chose to meet him half way, which ended up being a Walmart parking lot in Clermont. Quite a contrast from my time with Mr. Coe to say the least. However, the new owner is very excited to catch a redfish in the lagoon with his new "old" skiff. Hopefully, it will laugh with him when appropriate and nod along in agreement when he does everything right as it has for me.

So there you have it, I sold a boat and I wasn't nearly as happy as I'm supposed to be. I was gonna just post a one liner that the boat was sold. That's the thing to do these days, right? A simple and courteous note that the "thing" I was trying to sell isn't available any more. Sorry, I couldn't bring myself to be so trite about something that enriched my life in so many ways. Maybe its just a boat, or maybe not. Maybe its a lot more. I know I'd like to think so. 

 

yeah, maybe all that was a bit mushy.  :-/

Still, how many boats can you think of that you or anyone you know for that matter, owned for more than 10 years that you didn't grow to dislike or downright hate something about it?

In addition to the great memories accumulated over 12 years of use, this is the only boat that I can honestly say I loved everything it could do just the way it was or the way I modified it. Sure I could and would have improved some things, but they would only be tweaks. It really was/is a great little skiff and I think few people would realize it unless they spent time fishing in it. With two guys it does the skinny with all but the most extreme custom skiffs. Perfectly usable with 25hp and down right scary with a 50hp, which it is actually USCG rated for. Seaworthy enough for a couple guys to snook fish an inlet or several mile runs offshore in reasonable sea/weather conditions. Hard not to get attached to a little boat like that. 

But it is time to turn the page and look at some thing a little better suited for 3-4 people and also used in places where large expanses of protected water is the exception not the rule. If I still lived in S. Miami I doubt I ever would have sold it. Can't ever see me going back there metaphorically or physically for more than a week at a time.