New Healthy Grin

The Healthy Grin has gotten a bit larger. With 8,000 hours on the engines, I knew I was going to have to do something in the not too distant future. My first Albemarle was a 265 Express. I used up 4 engines in that boat. The 305 Albemarle has been a fantastic boat and it sure has been a good fish catcher! I had pretty much decided to repower her in about a year or so if the engines continue to hold up (they are running great right now). Albemarle contacted me about a 33 they are building. They wanted to get me into one of their new boats. They offered to customize it and to reduce the list price by over 100K and to take the old Healthy Grin in trade and asked me what I wanted for her. Great deal for a great boat but still a lot more than new engines. I did a little research to find what the 305 Albe was worth and was surprised by what I found. There are a lot of good boats out there for sale and people do not use their boats. Some amazingly low engine hours on some very good fishing boats. Dare Marina had a 35 Carolina Classic listed that seemed too good to be true. I called the good folks at Dare and asked for an estimate to repower my Albemarle and said that I would like to take a look at that Carolina Classic. The boat looked brand new. The old saying “more important than the deal are the people in the deal” is often true. The people at Dare Marina are the best, www.daremarina.com . It turned out that a few of my friends had actually fished on this boat. They had nothing but great things to say about the boat and about the owner, Billy Price and his family. The Healthy Grin is now a 35 Carolina Classic. After almost two decades of running Albemarles, it is going to take a little time to get used to being Carolina Classic owner.