The story starts on a late Saturday night in November 2013. I was sitting in the sofa, maybe I’ve had a drink or two. In fact I had. As the boat freak I am I was browsing around the boating section on the Finnish auction site huuto.net. There was this auction on a water scooter. The only picture was slightly out of focus and taken in a dark shed and the scooter was partly covered with junk. The description was short, ”Old water scooter for sale, no engine”. That was it. I thought it was one of those 1970’s things made to carry an outboard engine on the transom. Could be fun and I had just the right engine for it hanging in my workshop. The starting bid was 50 €. I placed a bid at 52 €. Immediately after that I regretted placing the bid but I figured someone else would make a bid and free me from the whole thing.
I forgot about the whole auction until a week later when I got mail from the auction site congratulating me for winning the auction! OK, a gentleman’s bid is a bid. I contacted the seller and arranged for the pick-up next weekend. On a Saturday morning I hanged the trailer behind my car and drove the 280 km to Konnevesi. It was a snowy day, sadly, because the lake district in Finland is rather scenic but I didn’t see much of that in the snow. I found the sellers home and he helped me to load and strap the scooter on the trailer. That’s when I observed that the scooter was built like a traditional boat with a propeller axle trough the bottom and a rudder behind the propeller. Hmmm, this thing is maybe a bit older than I thought…
The seller was a nice guy and invited me in to his home for a cup of coffee, sandwiches and a nice chat before I took on the journey home. The snow persisted and kept on coming the whole way home. I backed the trailer into my workshop to let the snow melt of.
Restoring the Amanda Water Scooter 