By John Brownlee
Capt. Jim Sarno of Stuart, Florida, wears many hats. He captains 100-foot-plus yachts for several of his wealthy clients, he builds boats, and he has a contracting firm that repairs and refurbishes boats of all sizes. He was trained by the late Bill Knowles of Knowles Boat Company, so he learned the trade from one of the best.
Sarno can fix about anything, so when it came time to do a project boat for himself, he looked for a solid hull that desperately needed a complete redo. In 2007, he found a 1978 Mako 25 that fit that description perfectly, and he bought it. The boat needed everything, but that’s how he wanted it, a clean slate. He would have to paint the entire boat, rewire everything, repower the boat and install a new fuel tank and new electronics. Like most 1970s vintage boats, the Mako had a notched transom, but Sarno wanted to enclose it.
So, he filled in the transom notch, creating a super-strong full transom to hold a bracket, and then priced out several ready-made brackets. But he wasn’t fully satisfied with any of them, so he decided to make his own. He welded together a custom aluminum bracket that fit the Mako’s new transom perfectly and then bought a new pair of 200 hp inline four-cylinder Suzuki four-strokes to power the boat.
He painted the boat inside and out, rewired everything, and even built some custom items like a custom anchor locker and a fold up table in the stern area. A new T-top and a suite of Garmin electronics completed the process. The Knot Worried runs great with the Suzuki power, cruising at 29 knots at 4200 rpm while burning only 14.5 gph. That’s two nmpg. Wide open, the Mako hits 43 knots at 5800 rpm.
Sarno and his wife Aimee love fishing and cruising in the boat and recently took a camping vacation aboard to the Dry Tortugas off Key West. The solid Mako hull should last many more years if not forever, so more adventures, including some extended Bahamas runs, are just around the corner.
