Hi Josh,
Yes, the missing bracket would mean no contact points and that is why it sunk. Keep in mind that these parameter files are being read by a computer program that wants to see things formatted in a certain way or it ignores them. I figured you had something wrong in your file but I wasn't sure what. Sending you my file was the quickest way of not wasitng too much of your time.
Now, you can continue to use my file if you didn't have any additional textures beyond the two my file covers in your fishing boat folder. However, if you had additional textures in that folder, which is quite possible from other installations, then you need to take your old file that didn't work and add the bracket and see if it works.
I am ssuming you already made the other changes the Hollis Boats readme file had you make, hopefully using the corrected readme that has this as point number 1 part way through:
1. The aircraft.cfg file in the ...P3D\SimObjects\Boats\AI_Vessel_TF_Fishing_Boat_FSX folder that you just modified above should still be open. If it isn't open, please open it and find the [contact_points] section in the aircraft.cfg and insert this line immediately under the [contact_points] header:
always_use_avg_surface=1
Rod