Hello all, Since Doug (V153) posted a pic of my Contender and I have joined I thought I would introduce myself. The thread 'Weekend at Bernie's" shows the Contender. It is just the latest of my association with Glastrons. I live in East Tennessee now but grew up down near Doug in SW Fla. I grew up water skiing in and around Charlotte Harbor with several friends who were and some are still Glastron owners. My best friend from age 4 (I'm 56 now) still owns our high school ski mule, a yellow GT150 affectionately known as 'Tweety". She's been repowered twice and now has a 100 HP Johnson. Another of our friends had a Jetflite with a 135 Johnson, a very serious ski boat. Another had a blue GT160, still has it but it hasn't seen the water in many years.
Anyhow, life led me to Tennessee where I had no boat for a few years but came upon a 1969 Skiflite with a 60 HP 3 cyl. Johnson that I bought and skied behind for nearly 20 years. I gave it away about 8-9 years ago, still ran but more problems than fun.
A few (3-4 years) ago I began thinking about boating again, so I started looking for old speed boats and found a Hydrostream Viper with a 175 Merc in bad condition. I re-cored, re-transomed and repainted it and began learning to fly it (70 mph plus) and realized I really didn't enjoy going that fast. I began looking for a more reasonable motor for it and found a Merc 1350 inline shortshaft attached to a weird looking dual tunnel tri-hull called a Powercat. I bought the rig for 650 then found out about Powercats. They are remarkable boats, handling and stability are outstanding...anyway I rebuilt and repainted the Powercat and sold the Hydrostream. I joined a Powercat owners group and one of the guys from Texas mentioned a Glastron Carlson Contender with a weird looking inline for sale near Dallas. I told him he ought to grab it, and he did. Eventually I bought it, drove 1700 miles round trip to get it, and over the last 10 months I rebuilt it. Hope to get registered and get it on the water soon.
Thats my Glastron story, and I'm stickin to it.
Bernie