Bumped into Claire and her lively bunch of mates on a bush track up the river last Christmas and was rapt to see her dusty Merlin Mirage Deluxe in tow ready to tear up the mighty Murray. Greetings were exchanged but I only let them pass on the promise of sending ASB a few pics of this ripper clinker ...took a while but here she is :)
History about the Merlin's time spent with me:
- I brought it in 2005 after seeing it advertised in the Trading Post.
- My first boat
- It's was tidy but not very pretty to look at. White all over with a brownish/green weather faded stripe down the bow along the sunken section, the big old windshield was bowed & cracked & it had a terrible carpet job. Red 186 motor. Ran well.
- Summer 06/07 first outing for the season, it sheered the end off the crank.
- Replaced the 186 with a blue 202 but kept the 186 head - it was a Yella Terra & the 350 Holley.
- The 202 turned out to be fairly rough once we had a proper look at it but then coincidentally a friend found someone wanting to sell some race pistons so bugger it, I got them….. then the flood gates opened.
- Stripped the motor back to nothing & put in new everything. Block was bored out to .60thou to fit pistons (ACL race series) & stage 2 cam. Then tidied up all the little things: straight cut gears, brass welsh plugs etc…
- Painted the hull & trailer, new carpet, new gauges etc…
- 2 yrs later it was back on the water!
- Been an amazing boat ever since.
The Merlin has served Clair & crew well over the years and has been the perfect first boat though thoughts of an upgrade have been niggling at her lately, we'll see what happens. Cheers for sharing her with us mate, bloody love these Mirage Deluxe's and have spent quite a bit of ski time with them in the past ... great boats!
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