Here's an interesting case;

A couple bought a (large) wooden boat for $21,000 back in 2001 and
then spent $600,000 for repairs. (There's a familiar story.....)

Six years later, the boat is going to be opened to the public in an
effort to raise the enormous amount of money required......... to
repair and renovate the vessel again!

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Former Boblo Boat returning to Detroit
AP
DETROIT (AP) - One of the excursion boats that ferried passengers to
the defunct Boblo Island amusement park will be tugged up the Detroit
River later this month to kick off the weeklong celebration of the
renovated Detroit riverfront.

The three-story, 197-foot Ste. Claire will dock at Tricentennial State
Park at the start of the International River Days on June 22 and
remain there through Nov. 9.

Visitors can walk through it, buy souvenirs and become part of
renovation efforts that will start this fall, the Detroit Free Press
reported Tuesday.

"A lot of people's first memories of the Detroit River have to do with
time they spent on the Boblo boat," said Caroline Marks, spokeswoman
for the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy. Ron Kattoo, 39, of Bloomfield
Hills, and his Maximus Corp. bought the boat in March 2006 from Diane
Evon of Cleveland.

Evon and her former husband, John Belko, paid $21,000 for the boat in
2001 and spent $600,000 in restorations. The couple had moved it
around to different shipyards, renovating it and using it for a
haunted house on Halloween.

Generations of park-goers boarded the Ste. Claire and Columbia in
downtown Detroit for the 15-mile cruise to Canada's Boblo Island
amusement park. The boats made their last runs in October 1991 and
were designated as National Historic Landmarks in 1992.

The Columbia was sold to an investor group in New York City.

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com