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Long Road Ahead
I left that day for the three hour trip to Pennsylvania with cash in hand, tow hitch hooked up and my fingers crossed. After getting badly lost we finally met up in a restaurant parking lot, chatted for a few minutes and then left to look at the boat. I followed him to a farm, and at the end of the driveway was the orange metalflake Ventura at a blurred distance sitting on top of an almost new EZ Loader trailer. When I got up closer I couldn’t believe the lines of the boat and how the hull looked with those "gull-wings". I was very impressed with another one of Pipkorn's designs, and the thoughts of hanging a nice V6 on the back were already crossing my mind. When I got up to the boat however I was not surprised how the years had taken their toll on the entire boat. Everything was ruined from the badly oxidized gelcoat to the completely destroyed original interior. The boat was bare with only a cracked steering wheel and an 18 gallon fuel cell remaining. The core was completely saturated and was starting to rot where the ski pole bracket had been screwed into the floor. Luckily this boat does not have a sub floor, or it would still be sitting on that farm.
The hull was in good condition, but needed a little pad work and the gel coat was still like new, but only from the rubrail down. The transom was solid and in good shape along with the deck of the boat. Curious to see what I could do with it, I bought it for next to nothing. I figured if the boat was not capable of a restoration, then I could easily sell the trailer for the same price that I paid for the whole package. I hooked it up to my truck and towed it 4 hrs home with no lights (socket rot) and it being held down by clothesline. While towing it home I could feel a pull on my truck, even going downhill it felt like the wheels were seizing up on the trailer, and couldn’t
figure out what was happening and why, then I realized that it was the wind hitting the windshield of the boat. The windshield was original, but I knew with that kind of aerodynamic loss that it would have to be sacrificed. The windshield made the Ventura appear old and even though the boat was from the 70’s, I wanted to give it an updated look. Hydrostream produced a sharp looking low profile tinted windscreen later in the Ventura’s life, but locating one new or used would prove to be impossible.| Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Pictures |
| Long Road Ahead | Getting Started | Temporary Setback | The Recore Part I | The Recore Part II | Installation Part I | Installation Part II | Future Plans |