Sounds like you had rotten luck, but at least it didnt put you off
boating. I'd guess that less than 1% of us here have written off a boat
due to hurricane damage.

Yeah, it was a freak deal, but I bought the boat right and insured it for more
than I paid (less than it was worth though). I was able to get a newer and
larger boat with the proceeds so other than a lot of hassle it wasn't a
horrible experience.

So you are old enough to know better. ;-) (otherwise known as young at
heart)

Yeah, some think I'm a little old for the jetskis at 47, but my dad bought his
jetski in 1992 at 72 years old and got me hooked.

Try to remember every strange way of doing things your relatives of your
parent's generation had then ask here *why* they were doing things thast
oddball way. To make thias place work the way its ment to *you* must do
what you can to help. Sometimes thats asking the right question,
other times if you are experianced with the problem its posting your
experiance and what you did to fix it, and just once in a while, all it
takes is just posting a link to a website you *allready* know about that
covers that exact issue. (90% of the planet knows how to use Google, the
remaining 10% mostly can't even use a keyboard)

Thanks.

95% of your problem is google groups. Are you reasonably comfortable
with PCs? If so, check out http://www.individual.net/ for a better way
of accessing this and many many other USENET groups. (This is *NOT* a
Google group and long precedes Google, whatever they would like you to
belive). What you choose from the group will be delivered to your PC
just like email for you to read at your leasure and reply to if and when
the mood takes you. Better yet, just about *any* of the different
software packages they have instructions for will allow you to filter
out 95% of the cr@p before it hits your screen. I filter on a long list
of political and 'war on terror' phrases and additionally on a long list
of posters who are a waste of electrons. Result: most of what I see is
boating related. Also the individual.net service is free. N.B. It is
well worth using a totally different program for newsgroups than the one
you use for email. It prevents you accidentally sending an email for
your doctor to the group and other worse things. While I'm on the
subject, its extremely unwise to use a valid email address on usenet
unless you enjoy reading spam. I hope the address you entered into
google is one you can easily throw away. (Its also extremely bad
manners to redirect your spam to someone else. The TLD '.invalid' is
guaranteed to NEVER contain any real addresses).

I have to use google at work. I use Compuserve at home. The newsreader is
decently set up and has some filtering capabilities so I get rid of a lot, but
a lot makes it through. Work has a great email filter so most of the spam gets
booted and I only get 4 or 5 a day (filter catches over 5,000 per day at the
server level). I don't get a lot at my Compuserve addy either. I hope I never
get to the point I have to munge the address or feel uncomfortable putting my
real name on my posts. But then I have only recently made a concerted effort to
lock my doors at night and still don't tend to lock my car. I am sure I will
pay for that someday. Grew up in a small town and have difficulty shaking the
easy going habits.

For some of us an 19' cuddy would be a significant step up
Have a look at some of the boats of people here.
http://thebayguide.com/rec.boats/

Thanks, I will!


Lee Yeaton's main site http://thebayguide.com/ is also worth a look. You
wont find a link to it from the rec.boats pictures pages except on the
entry for Lee's own boat as Lee is very careful not to take any
commercial advantage from his position as custodian of the rec.boats
picture archive.

Stick around and wait for things to get better here. (Your elections
usually bring all the bottom dwelling trash feeders up out of the mud,
now thats over things should start to improve and when the weather gets
half way reasonable for an afternoon on the water or some spring
maintenance outdoors this group can get almost civilised.)


Thanks for a great response.

The other Dave Hall