The Pink Flamingo in Arizona

Finally some decent pictures!!  Mainly because our friend Gene was in town and he actually knows how to use a camera.  And he had a wide angle lens along which greatly helps in the small space.  We’ve been in the water for 6 months now and met some great friends at the marina.  The Pink Flamingo is the preferred boat to pile on and go for a later afternoon and sunset cruise.  Partially because of the large top deck it has for a 34 footer and probably partially because I’ll stay sober sometimes to drive.

But either way I must say I’m pretty impressed with what we have been able to do with it over the years.  I don’t know if I ever want to tackle a project like this again and I know I’ll never ever get remotely close to what I have invested in it.  But for us it’s perfect.

The queen size bed is so much nicer than the twin or futon that I slept on for 10 years.  The huge upper top deck has plenty of room to move around on and it’s not crowded even with a dozen or more people up there.  The swim platform is awesome being able to lower it down since much of out time is spent in the marina.  Dixie will swim and fetch the ball off it where before she wouldn’t jump in the 10″ off the old platform.  It has also become known as “The Pool” and tends to open up when the bar at the marina closes down a 9 p.m. in the summer and it’s still 100+ out.  We have the dual reclining sofa if someone stays over or plenty of room up top to pitch a tent or throw down a mattress.  Plus not having a separate spare bedroom means we don’t have guests staying every weekend.  And best of all we have the room of a 45 or 50 footer but get to fit it in a 40 foot slip saving a few hundred a month.  And also important in Arizona is the marine air that can keep the bottom half nice and cool in the 115 temps.

I’ve lost track of how many people have come aboard and been amazed at how nice it is for a boat, especially one that is 40+ years old.  We often here the “Damb, this is nicer than my house” comments from guests.  Granted they must not be looking too close at things because I’ll admit I’m not master carpenter especially when it comes to trim work.

I can’t thank enough all of the people who have help or inspired me with this.  Although I many times cursed out Steve who had originally made his Chris Craft larger or Jimmy who cut my railings off and started the ball rolling.  It’s been a once in a lifetime experience to say the least and looking forward to the second half of our lives on The Pink Flamingo.

The Pink Flamingo is now in Arizona and has been for a year.  By the time we moved out it was too hot to work on it and being that the marinas are a hundred steps down when the water is high, a 1/4 mile walk to the slip, and 30 minutes from the nearest Home Depot I figured it was best to finish the majority of work on shore before dropping it in.  But as always time flew by and it’s hot again and time to drop it in the water.

In the last year I finished most of the inside, wiring, added a more permanent hatch for the top, and designed and helped build a 6′ swim platform that has a 3′ section that will drop in the water.  At least I hope it will.  It’s been 10+ years since I’ve done any real Mechanical Engineering work so most of it was by the seat of my pants design.  On the swim platform I decided to go with a white aluminum deck.  We actually need more weight in the back but a wood deck would float and the composite almost floats plus gets too hot.  While the aluminum transfers heat fast the white color actually helps keep it a bit cooler in the blaring Arizona sun than the wood was.

Hales Marine had repainted the entire upper cabin for me and I must say it looks sharp.  With the graphics added on The Pink Flamingo is looking better than the day it was built I bet.

It doesn’t seam like we have made much progress since the first weekend when it all came together so fast.  But then again I did meet the love of my life Tammy and I’ll blame it on her.  Or maybe thank her for the progress that we did make because she wasn’t going to stay on it until it had a working bathroom so much of that is done at least.  Plus we only get a few good months of boating in Illinois and who really wants to spend all of that time working on the boat.

Thanks to a dear friend Dave Bishop who has since passed away we scored a great deal on some nice cabinets for it.  During his weekly visit to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore for his house remodeling he saw an entire semi full of nice cabinets they had.  At the time I was still trying to figure out the complete design for the inside.  I knew we needed a bar up by the driver so when I was the DD I could still join in the conversation.  We also needed a kitchen area now that I had a great women in my life.  And a computer desk so I could work from the houseboat as I had for the last 8 or so summers.

So off to the ReStore I went with a million ideas in my head but no official plan.  The cabinets were going fast at $35-$50 per cabinet for brand new cabinets so I picked out a bunch of different ones that I figured might work for what we needed.  We took them back to the marina and started placing them on board and playing with a few combinations and finally decided on the layout I have.  And even more a miracle than actually coming up with the final design was the fact that I had just the right number and sizes for it to work out nicely.  I think I ended up with 2 shorter cabinets that we didn’t use and we had to have a friend custom make a tall cabinet then for besides the fridge.

So at this point we had most of the cabinets and countertops in, a working bathroom and shower, windows, and part of the ceiling.  The swim platform is on as well as the ladder to the top deck, railings on the top deck, and the hatch and stairs to get to the top deck from inside the front of the boat.  Of coarse all of that was accomplished because we needed it to be done in order to have the band play on top for the yearly sandbar party.  But still no back door or finishing touches on it yet so there is plenty to do still.  Here’s the few pictures I could find from then.

I’m not sure if remodel is the correct term or not.  The front cabin and windows, steering wheel and console, wiring to the engine, and engine and outdrive or still original and untouched.  In this process the head was moved, cabin pushed out and back, 90% of the AC wiring redone, gas and water tanks moved and replaced, hell even the holding tank was moved.  Although the holding tank was then moved back to the original location which was really a shitty job (sorry for the pun LOL).

To keep a long story short as short as I can after 10+ years of owning The Pink Flamingo and having lots of fun on it my friend Jimmy finally got sick of me talking about remodeling it and cut off the old railings (half of which were broken anyways) and got the process rolling.  A friend had done a similar remodel 15+ years ago which I was always envious of how much room he had in his after pushing the cabin out and to the back of the boat.

We built the walls up out of 2×4 for strength (yearly we put a band and about 20 people ended up on top of the boat so it had to be strong) and 1/4″ plywood with a fiberglass sheet glued to that.  Similar to how they build many RV’s.  The 3 walls were built ahead of time at a friends place  and on the day (May 31, 2008 I believe) that we were going to start ripping off the old cabin we had over 15 friends who showed up to help.  In 1 day the old cabin was cut-off, new cabin put in place, and the roof rafters and sheeting were installed.  Not bad for a days work.  At the time I figured it was going to be simple, little did I know 5 years later I’m still trying to finish it (and still wasting money on it).

These are the pictures of the start of it.  I wish I would have taken better pictures and documented the process while we were doing it.  But shortly after the cabin was installed the rain started for weeks it seams and our lakes were so flooded that the parking lot was 1.5 feet deep under the boat.  Which greatly slowed the progress on it the first year.