Is Your Boat Worth Saving? Keep In Mind That It's More Than Just A Boat
Your boat has seen better days. Getting it back into shape will require some time, some effort and, of course, some money.
Is it worth the hassle? Should you just sell it while it's still worth something and get what you can while you can?
It depends. What's the value of a memory?
When people spend time on the water, especially when they're young, those memories have a way of turning out to be the best and most important of their entire lives.
Boats are transportation. They move people and things across bodies of water. But anyone who's ever spent time on the lake with their family knows that a boat can be so much more. Fishing with your dad. Tubing with your kids. Watching sunsets with your husband ... or your wife, depending on who's driving.
Either way, those outboard motors do more than displace water to create motion. They're memory machines. If you grew up on a lake and you hear the sound of a boat engine starting up years or even decades later, the nostalgia you feel for a time and place that's gone forever can be overwhelming.
That old boat of yours is rusty and worn and outdated. Is it worth salvaging? It may be tough to justify on a dollars-and-cents calculation, but you should keep in mind that value can't always be measured in cost.
If you do decide to invest in resurrecting your boat and then question your decision when the going gets tough, take comfort in knowing that your salvaging a lot more than just metal and fiberglass. Your breathing life back into the thing that's most likely to give birth to a even a few more irreplaceable memories — and you can't put a price on that.
- Scott Reynolds