When Dave Skrzecz removed the wrapping from the 25′ response boat he had purchased sight unseen, he found the remains of a working vessel.
The boat had spent about a decade sitting on a trailer in Anchorage, Alaska, exposed to snow and shifting temperatures. Its cabin was gray and black with grime. The fuel tank held roughly 50 gals. of old gasoline, while a separate tank for its diesel heater remained three-quarters full. Seats, electronics, and anything else of value had been removed when the Coast Guard decommissioned it, leaving severed wires and abandoned cable throughout the cabin.
“The trailer it sat on was in better shape than the boat,” Skrzecz said. “They literally gutted it.”…