1983 Gibson Houseboat Restoration

In November 2006 Wade and Susan found a 1983 Gibson on Ebay, and d gibson ecided to restore the houseboat to it's glory days.

Here is an excerpt from their blog:

After years and years dreaming of finding a way to be able to explore the coastal waterfront areas of Maine and eventually the Intracoastal waterways and rivers of this magnificent country, Susan and I find ourselves the proud owners of a 1983 43' Gibson houseboat.

I had planned to build a houseboat from scratch because I love to create and work with my hands and after finishing the sunroom on our house was looking for a challenge. I bought plans for a 45' houseboat from Glen-L marine and actually came pretty close to ordering the framing lumber from our friends Jim & Becky at Holt & Bugbee but finances were tight last winter so I put it off. Then after a crazy summer and fall of working 50 to 60 hour weeks I came to realize that with my responsiblities and work it would take me 10 years at least to build the boat so I Googled "Used Houseboats" and couldn't Gibson Houseboat

belive it when I discovered this boat for sale on E-Bay. amazingly, it was located in Gilford NH only an hour and a half from our house so Susan and I took a trip to check it out and found out the owner was really motivated to sell as he didn't even use it this past year and was paying for storage. We made him an offer and he accepted.

The next hurdle to navigate (pun intended) was to get the boat moved from Gilford NH to the house. I called Dayton Marine who my brother Jeff used to work for and asked if they could handle the job. Well of course they needed to know the height (12') and width (14') and informed me they would need to get a pole car to go in front of the hauler to detect any low wires. I also asked that they inspect my driveway to make sure they could get it {mosgoogle left}up our dirt road to the house. Luckily my wonderful neighbors (Bill & Joe) spent a morning while I was working cutting down a huge poplar tree that leaned in over the road and would have made the job impossible.

Bucky (from Dayton Marine) inspected the road and said it was a go and that he would give me a call when he could fit it in his schedule. I've made a condensed video of the trip which shows the 100 mile journey in 3 minutes. As soon as I get a chance I will post it for viewing.

Stay tuned for more... Wado

You can follow their progress on their site: http://musbenice.com/

Click on the "Incredible Blog" link to read their blog.

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites