1967 Uniflite Navy MK-10 Surplus Motor Whaleboat - boats - by owner - marine sale - craigslist (2024)

The second owner was a friend and former boss, the general manager of a full-service boatyard in Fort Lauderdale. He and his crew refurbished many surplus motor whaleboats for resale as recreational boats around the canals of southeast Florida.

A sailor and boatbuilder of vast experience, he fitted this particular boat for his personal use as a camp cruiser for vacations to the Bahamas. He had full use of the various trades at the boatyard and customized her to be comfortable, seaworthy, and reliable. He and his wife traveled to Bimini and Marsh Harbor in her twice in the 1990s and the early 2000s for extended stays. After that she was enjoyed around the canals of Fort Lauderdale until she fell into disuse.

I became the third owner in 2017 when she came to my dock in Bradenton by trailer, where she has been mostly unused, tied up behind my house in a brackish canal. Her Awlgrip paint job is flaking badly and she will need to be stripped and repainted.

She is powered by a 4 cylinder Westerbeke 40. That is basically a marinized Perkins 4-108, an industrial engine that was sold all over the world for many years for generators, pumps, heavy equipment, and boat engines. This one has 610 hours on the hour meter since major overhaul by the second owner and has plenty of life left. There are still dealers who sell parts for these engines. A Velvet Drive gearbox turns a 1 3/8" stainless shaft and a 4-bladed propeller, designed to move up to 20 sailors at 6 knots and burning about a pint per hour of diesel fuel. She has fresh-water cooling and two stainless steel fuel tanks of 15 gallons each. She has three bilge pumps plus an auxiliary portable bilge pump rig that can be used to rescue other boats traveling with her. She is fitted with an Autohelm electric autopilot, VHF radio, two depth finders, starting battery (included) and space for a bank of two 6-volt house batteries (not included). Two spare propellers are included, as well as two Danforth anchors with chain and rodes, dock lines, and a couple of fenders.

Her deck hardware is heavy duty bronze and everything about her was built or rebuilt to last. The bilge pumps, for example, were installed in the 1990s but are still operational. The engine runs and the gearbox works and she can move and steer on her own, but she is not reliable enough for a long trip.

Otherwise she is in need of serious attention from a skilled boatman/mechanic in order to be restored to reliable service. Hoses, lines, wiring and so on are now approaching 40 years old and are ready to be replaced or overhauled. Electronics are obsolete for the most part. In the time I have owned her, I have replaced the fuel pump, engine water circulation pump, starter motor, and a hose or two as needed. The battery was new a few months ago. Within the last month, I pumped the starboard fuel tank, replaced the fuel, flushed the system and got her running. The port tank is full of old fuel.

She is also fitted with a custom-made, removable fiberglass bow dodger with a Bomar hatch and mounting points for the anchors. For camping, she had a custom-made canvas cabin top with removable stainless steel bows that covered the forward half of the passenger compartment and a screened “back door”. This enclosure is weathered and unusable but has been kept as a pattern to construct a replacement if desired. A weathered and patched Bimini top is installed and included in the sale. There is also an Isinglass windshield panel in great shape that was made to fill the gap between the cabin and the Bimini to give the helm area some shelter in bad weather. Reinforced pad eyes for crew life lines are in place, and Lirakis safety harnesses and tethers are included in the sale.

Bring a trailer. The boat is located a short run from Coquina Beach boat ramp at Bradenton Beach. She starts and runs and shifts fine, but I wouldn’t count on her aged hoses and hardware to run her farther on her own power unless you bring tools and know-how.

NOTE: THE LAST 4 PHOTOS ARE MANY YEARS OLD AND SHOW WHAT SHE LOOKED LIKE WHEN SHE WAS YOUNG. SHE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT TODAY.