Two Guys, One Boat, and One Sketchy Seller | Sea Ray 270 Project fixing up an old Sea Ray

I’ve always loved boats. There’s just something about them — the smell of varnish, the old brass fittings, the sound of water hitting the hull. I’ve restored a few wooden Chris-Crafts over the years. Those boats had soul. Every plank of mahogany told a story, every season started with sanding, varnish, and swearing, and when you finally got one back on the water and it didn’t sink — that was a victory you could feel in your chest.

Now I know this is where I’m probably misleading you, because this story isn’t about a wooden boat at all. This one’s fiberglass. I sold my old wood boats a few years back when I was getting Americana Mfg. off the ground. Those boats quite literally funded the business. It was the right decision — but I missed them. Still do.

After months of manufacturing day in and day out, cutting parts, painting coops, and juggling more projects than any sane person should, I started daydreaming. The monotony gets to you sometimes. You start thinking about little escapes. I thought maybe, just maybe, a boat project wouldn’t hurt. Something low maintenance this time — something I could actually use instead of just refinish every couple of years.

So, me being me, I convinced myself this would be a “responsible distraction.” (Famous last words.)

If I split it with a friend, that’d make it even smarter, right? Half the cost, half the docking fees, and twice the excuses to goof off on the weekends. And then — like fate — I stumbled across a 1980s Sea Ray 270 for sale. Cheap. Suspiciously cheap. Which, if you know me, is basically like waving a red flag at a bull.

But get this — the boat was built right in my hometown of Oxford, Michigan. A Sea Ray made in the same town I grew up in? Well, that almost sounds like destiny. Or at least a really solid justification for a poor financial decision.

So, I called my buddy. He likes fishing. I like cruising around, drinking beer, and coming up with ideas that sound good until Monday rolls around. Within a week, we were standing in some guy’s yard shaking hands with a very sketchy seller and telling ourselves, “It just needs a little work.” (It always just needs a little work.)

The first thing that caught my attention was the interior. Most 80s boats have that fuzzy carpet that looks like it was ripped off the wall of a bowling alley and stapled to the floor. But this one — this one was something special. It looked like Rick James himself had ordered it straight from the factory. White leather, glass mirrors, accent lighting — the kind of setup where you can hear “Super Freak” the moment you open the cabin door. You can practically smell the Aqua Net and bad decisions. I’m not interested in the white powder side of its history, but I can appreciate the style.

So that was it. We bought it. Because apparently, I needed another distraction in my life.

The plan was simple: split the docking fees, get it running, and have a little floating cabin we could drive an hour to whenever life got too repetitive. Something we could take out on the Great Lakes, cruise around, maybe crack a few beers, maybe not come back until Sunday.

I also started daydreaming about buying an underwater drone — the kind that can dive a thousand feet — to explore the Great Lakes shipwrecks. Imagine the videos: cruising out, dropping the drone, bow to stern shots of shipwrecks that haven’t been seen since the ‘20s, editing it all together with some history behind it. I thought, “Yeah, that’s the kind of content I’d actually watch.”

We didn’t quite get that far.

We got the boat running. We cleaned it up. Fixed what we could. Filmed some clips. Then winter rolled in early and reminded me that Michigan doesn’t care about my schedule or my dreams. So, the Sea Ray is now winterized, sitting there like a promise I’ll have to keep come spring.

I threw together a YouTube video with some of the footage from this summer — nothing fancy, just a fun little recap of how this whole thing went down.