This is it!

Or rather, this is the beginning of it.
I think the good lord was smiling on me. I won the O'Day 25 with the $800 opening bid. No one else bid; it went off without a hitch.
Upon winning the auction, however, I received two suspicous emails. Long story short, they were scams. I'll cover the details in another post.
The emails were completely unconnected to the seller, and I am very happy with the way he handles his business.
This boat is almost exactly what I was looking for the whole time, even if I didn't know it. It's small, but fully furnished, can be trailered, was cheap but still in decent condition, and best of all, can be kept where it is until spring at no extra cost.
Now I just need to find a trailer and a way to load the boat onto it. After that... who knows? I just hope I'm as happy with this purchase when I see it as I am now.

I have a boat!