Boat Profile:

The Metal Man - Jim Day

What kind of person converts a 14 foot aluminum skiff to an offshore fishing machine?

Given Jim's analytic nature and feel for design, there aren't a lot of things that he did that he regrets (on the boat, at least). Here are a couple:

When Jim put his skiff together, one of his main concerns was whether or not the boat would be too heavy. He spent a considerable amount of time weighing things out, and trying to make the boat as light as possible. In the end, he notes, he probably went a little to far. The whole boat draws 6 inches of water with the motors up! Now he wishes that the floorboards were a little thicker...

Another thing he would have done differently is the bottom paint. During the course of the interview, we asked why he had bottom paint at all, since the boat is trailered. It turns out the bottom paint is purely cosmetic. As mentioned earlier, the original hull was in need of some repair when he received it, the bulk of the work being centered around fixing electrolysis damage near the waterline. The bottom paint was mainly to cover the many small welds. It looks good, but there were problems with the primer in a few areas, and as a result, he is seeing some crevice corrosion in the areas where the paint came loose.

At the end of the interview, we asked Jim if he had a parting thought for our readers, or some words of fishing or boating wisdom (this is the "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" question). He said:"Small boat fishermen have a unique relationship with the ocean, and can get to fish that people with larger boats can not. They should take advantage of that and spend more time learning to fish the waters they can reach effectively."

Then he laughed, and had to rush off to meet a client.

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