1980 570 Black Hawk in Sweden

[wolfpat64]

Howdy folks, just wanted to share some pictures and the story of our 1980 570 Black Hawk.

We bought it in the fall of 2013 way up North in Skellefteå, Sweden. It was in running condition but needed some TLC and we trailered it home 1150 kms to the South where we live in the Småland Highlands. No boating that fall, but we took out all the woodwork and refinished it. I made new tables for the cuddy and the aft, my wife made new curtains and decorated nicely.

First touch of the water was in June of 2014, when we launched at a marina in downtown Tranås. That first summer, we made many nice trips discovering Lake Sommen, the 9th largest lake in Sweden with supposedly as many islands as days of the year and a maximum depth of 50 meters. Our favorite place to moor became tiny Älgholmen (Moose Island) just East of the much larger Torpön. We also made a longer trip of 25 kms around Torpön, which resulted in an empty fuel tank and getting towed a bit. Had not figured out how to get the fuel gauge working, but discovered it came on with the lanterns!

Our 2nd summer, the weather was not as nice, but we made many trips again without problems and without any major repairs. The Evinrude 115 VRO V4 from the same year did a nice job - until the end of that summer: Because we wanted to secure battery power whilst moored, we had installed a solar cell with a voltage regulator. The regulator failed and sent out 30 volts into the system, which damaged the motor's stator coil.

Due to other projects taking precedence, the boat was stored away and we haven't had it out since - until today. During this intermission, we've replaced the starter motor (it was sticking), the fuel pump (previous owner had bypassed the separate oil feed and it was leaky), stator of course, ignition key switch (as it may have been damaged). We sanded off the old anti-foul paint and applied new, polished the whole boat, painted the windshield frames, resealed all the windows, replaced the voltage regulator and rewired much of the electrical.

This will be our 3rd summer in almost 5 years of owning the boat, and we feel she's better than ever and hope to have many nice trips! Do we have any other Swedish members of this forum? It'd be nice to share some experiences!

[vreagh]

Beutiful scenery and boat. Thanks for posting.

[rob]

Fantastic job......my Blackhawk needs tlc too and this has given me hope that one day it might be as nice as yours.
Thanks for posting.

[wolfpat64]

Beutiful scenery and boat. Thanks for posting.

Thank you, it is a wonderful lake and we just love the boat! Had our first day out today in all this time. In the main body of water, the wind was probably around 10 m/s with good movement in the water, but our Black Hawk handled it very nicely.

[wolfpat64]

Fantastic job......my Blackhawk needs tlc too and this has given me hope that one day it might be as nice as yours.
Thanks for posting.

Thank you for your kind comments! I'm sure you will do well with improving your Black Hawk too. The construction is so simple and straightforward, it's very easy to work with. I don't know anything about the condition of your boat, but all you need is time, a little money and lots of elbow grease! And if by chance you're working on an old Evinrude, I have service and repair manuals on a CD.

[rob]

Fantastic job......my Blackhawk needs tlc too and this has given me hope that one day it might be as nice as yours.
Thanks for posting.

Thank you for your kind comments! I'm sure you will do well with improving your Black Hawk too. The construction is so simple and straightforward, it's very easy to work with. I don't know anything about the condition of your boat, but all you need is time, a little money and lots of elbow grease! And if by chance you're working on an old Evinrude, I have service and repair manuals on a CD.

Thanks for the offer but my 90hp Jonson is running really well thankfully, all the work needed is cosmetic.