Took delivery today of a little 14' Lund SSV powered by Mercury 4 strokes. I wanted a small boat that I could handle solo for lakes, big rivers and inshore fishing and possibly for waterfowl in Georgia Strait.





LA Marine in Port Alberni put it together. They are great people. They sent the rails out for the welding.


The two outboards are steering linked so I can use the main as a rudder from my seat when trolling with the kicker and there are fuel lines and valves from the external gas tank to both. I've never had a fuel injected outboard like the 25 but I will be sure not to run it dry of fuel like the smaller carburated 5 HP kicker.


I went with the Mercury 5 HP Sail kicker because of its long shaft and more importantly, its ability to charge my battery while I troll. Hopefully it'll troll down to 1 MPH but if it doesn't I'll drag a 5 gallon pail behind me.


They said that regular unleaded is fine but over winter to put some seafoam into the gas.


It's getting crowded back there but I had them install an extendable re-boarding ladder on the starboard side of the transom.





They said that regular unleaded is fine but over winter to put some seafoam into the gas.


It has a 10 lb Danforth anchor with 10' of chain and 100' of braided nylon so I could anchor in up to 20' of water in windy conditions. The anchor rode is running through a fixed, lockable Scotty mount on the bow.





I asked for oars and because it's a split bench at the rowers station, they made up a small, removable cover that I can use when I want to row. I may mount a cutting board on it so that I can use it to clean fish as well.





It has navigation lights at the bow and stern so I can run it at night if I have to. I am keeping my Fenix HP25R headlamp in the boats dry bag along with the safety gear. It's 1000 lumens and should be enough if I get caught out after dark.


I have never used downriggers (Scotty 1106) nor a fishfinder/chart plotter (7" Garmin Echomap UHD) so there is going to be a bunch of head shaking on my part for the next couple of weeks.





I've run it a couple of times and it works great!


I'm looking at it as a versatile small boat plus in an emergency like a sinking or floods it could be used to try to help out.


If the big earthquake hits, I could use it to cross Georgia Strait and get to the Lower Mainland if I choose my weather carefully.