Florida man spends a whole year fixing free boat then takes it on the water for the first time in exhilarating moment

One YouTuber finally got to take his free boat out onto the water after spending a year fixing it up.

Josh Laurenti, the host of YouTube channel shadetree surgeon, had spent a ton of time working on his 27-foot 1989 Mako with twin 200hp engines.

While acquiring the boat had cost him nothing monetarily, he admitted that he’d paid for it in other ways.

He thought it’d be a quick job, but a year of work quickly put that theory to rest.

After a year of work, this free boat was finally ready for the water – but would it sink or swim?

Along the way, the shadetree surgeon had faced several bumps in the road, relating to the engine, the fuel pumps, the filters, and the sensors.

Basically, he had to teach himself marine mechanics.

For Josh, this was a massive learning curve and he had to learn fast.

Even after getting the engines to run, he found that the cooling systems were completely blocked, leading to more learning experiences.

By the point it came time to launch the boat on the water, his confidence had been knocked.

But his faith was restored considerably when he hammered the throttle and the ‘two-stroke fury’ of 400hp roared to life.

There’s no better feeling, as another boat tinkerer found out with this junkyard boat-turned-modern yacht.

Ultimately, this free boat proved that there is no such thing in life as a free meal.

What he didn’t foot in upfront costs he paid for with repair costs and time.

“Now, there may be some people out there that say, ‘I finally learned my lesson,’ but I didn’t learn s**t,” he remarked.

“It was just confirmation of what I already knew. You have to outlive your enemies because over a long enough timeline, success—winning—is always assured.

“And the minute you let off the gas, the only thing that you can be sure of is failure. And failure is not an option.”

Fixing up a boat is no small feat

We’ve heard plenty of stories about fixing up cars and all that entails – you’ll find plenty of those stories documented across the internet.

But taking on a boat repair job is no walk in the park either.

One American YouTuber found it to be a real uphill struggle until he sourced some parts from Temu.

Then there was the man who invested 200 days into building a solar-powered explorer yacht.

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