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drivinmenuts · 08-09-2009, 06:41

I signed up on the formosa owners yahoogroup and looked up the Dream Ketcher there, and sure enough, there' my boat nose down in the drink, with a photo of Bill standing on the bow looking toward the horizon with about half the freeboard above water as he's in the process of re-floating her.

anjou · 08-09-2009, 07:43

Yeah, I see. Quite a project with all that crap aboard eh?

drivinmenuts · 08-09-2009, 08:50

Got all the old varnish off the wheel on friday, and I'm about to start sanding it now.

S&S · 08-09-2009, 11:52

As the owner of a wood hulled boat, after reading this thread it seems I'm in the middle of the pack when it comes to maintenance.

Glass or wood you still have to paint the bottom
if it's glass you have to wax the topsides, I have to scuff and paint- if your gelcoat is gone, you've joined my club.
If you have brightwork it's the same either way.

Systems are systems regardless of hull material.

Where's the maintenance headache? If the boat has been maintained, I don't see much difference. Just want to put a stake in that particular urban legend.

anjou · 08-09-2009, 12:18

There was a lot of wood on the top sides of the older Formosas built in the 70s. It was laid over GRP laminate and fixed with screws so water penetrated the core and rotted the deck. Water ingress also round chain plates, bilge tanks were made in mild steel and are notorious for rusting. Also reports of chain plate bolts rusting due to poor quality stainless, and some bronze ports were also made of poor quality material. Same for some internal bulkhead ply material. Teak veneer over inferior non marine ply. Therefore, lots of on going maintenence issues

S&S · 08-09-2009, 12:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by anjou

There was a lot of wood on the top sides of the older Formosas built in the 70s. It was laid over GRP laminate and fixed with screws so water penetrated the core and rotted the deck. Water ingress also round chain plates, bilge tanks were made in mild steel and are notorious for rusting. Also reports of chain plate bolts rusting due to poor quality stainless, and some bronze ports were also made of poor quality material. Same for some internal bulkhead ply material. Teak veneer over inferior non marine ply. Therefore, lots of on going maintenence issues

At that point it sound's like you'd be better served getting a well built wood (timber) boat. There's a lot of them in the UK ( the weather is perfect for them). Almost bought a Morgan Giles sloop out of Salcombe in the early nineties. There was a guy at Ancasta who knew his stuff- I could try to find his name if you're interested- you'd get more boat for your pound with wood than GRP.

ColdFusion · 08-09-2009, 13:15

You get even more boat for your pound with ferrocement. Good professionally built ferro hulls that have already been around for a while will be around for a whole lot longer. Lots of them have stood the test of time, despite what the critics say. You buy them cheap and you sell them cheap but there are some good boats to be had if your budget is tight.

1981 Windboats Endurance Ketch

1982 Ferro Cutter Rig Sloop

1980 Samson Cutter C-Ghost

S&S · 08-09-2009, 13:39

Ferro is a bargain, but they're harder to adequately survey. That said there's some very good Ferro out there.
Here's some woodies:

1982 John Hanna Carol Sail New and Used Boats for Sale - (this would make a nice liveaboard)

1960 Hillyard 12 tonner Sail New and Used Boats for Sale -

If you extend the search to Europe there's more.

anjou · 08-09-2009, 15:31

Im impressed with the Ferro boats. Certainly a lot more for the money. The 1981 one is huge inside with nice big aft cab but the 1982 is better as shes euro tax paid and better found.

Nicco61 · 11-09-2009, 15:31

I've been reading this post for awhile and I thought I'd chime in. Putting your newly purchased boat on the hard in Texas may not be a bad idea even without a visa. I have a few retired military friends who are expats and living in various Asian countries with a tourist visa. US residents do not need a visa to visit ...simply a valid passport and a 90 day time limit. So one particular friend just goes to Pusan S. Korea and takes the ferry to Japan, gets his passport stamped, spends the night and come back the next day with another 90 days before he has to "leave" again. Texas; especially south Texas would be great because you could just go to Mexico, get your passport stamped, spend the night and repeat indefinately. I don't believe UK residents need a tourist visa to visit the US but I'm sure there would be a time limit.

Nick

Formosa's have great lines.

Fishman_Tx · 11-09-2009, 22:39

Nick: this is something I've been trying to suggest. And the wind ALWAYS blows in Corpus.

The crew of the Casino boat that used to be here would go to Mexico every so often over a weekend (once a month or 3) so the crew could get restamped.

House of Boats in Rockport is very inexpensive, long term. They have the work yard and the storage yard. "Normal" for the work yard is $10 day, but John will probably make excellent deal on prepaid long term. "Baby" came in a week ago Thursday from Florida, and is about to go under the "knife". Putty knife that is.

BTW, new pics "on the hard" added to the refit album

Daddy's Dream · 12-09-2009, 13:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by drivinmenuts

I signed up on the formosa owners yahoogroup and looked up the Dream Ketcher there, and sure enough, there' my boat nose down in the drink, with a photo of Bill standing on the bow looking toward the horizon with about half the freeboard above water as he's in the process of re-floating her.

I guess I should have finished reading the thread before sending you the private message. I went to Kemah back in December 08 to look at Dreamketcher. I intended to purchase her, but the brooker stood me up twice and we won't get into what I said as I left to go home. LoL

I think I still have all the same pics on my laptop that they have posted on the yahoo site. Julia knows a little about the history of Dreamketcher. You migt find it interesting to message her.

Daddy's Dream · 12-09-2009, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishman_Tx

Anj & ....nuts,
Re: NY Formosa 41 for $30k

Yes, Boat is still for sale. Can show the boat, weather permitting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ColdFusion

Fishman

After initially reading this thread I also sent the vendor an email and received exactly the same reply this morning, which I forwarded to anjou. You will have noticed the numerous email footers indicating the same email has been sent to numerous people. You also no doubt noticed all the email addresses it was sent to! Hope this isn't the start of an influx of spam!!!

Did you ask any specific questions and were they answered in the email reply? The generic reply, with no name being given, doesn't sit well with me, (although a phone number was included).

How did you manage to get an answer?

I emailed them three or four times with questions and never got any answer back at all.

drivinmenuts · 14-09-2009, 07:36

I sent you a private message too. Aside from what I sent you, I had actually met the owner, Bill, before I knew Dream Ketcher was for sale. He was looking at the engine in a salvaged Pearson 31 that I was looking at for 2k. I was thinking about buying her to restore and sell to generate funds for a CT-41, and he was planning on restoring Dream Ketcher and was looking at the 31's engine with the possibility of buying it to replace Dream Ketcher's. At the time I didn't know his boat was a CT-41.
I called a couple of times before I got hold of the broker, and made an appointment to go look at her that Saturday. The broker showed up shortly after I got there, and said the owner was on his way, and when Bill showed up, I assumed he was coming to look at her too, and then he was introduced as the owner.
The deal was that Bill was the harbor master at that marina, and was living aboard her. During Ike, he decided to ride it out at the dock. Since it's not a floating pier, and the tide surge went up something like 20', the docking lines started pulling her under bow first. He had his electric bilge pump going with shore power, and then the electricity went out and he tried to keep it up with the batteries and the whaler, but the surge rose so high and so fast she started to go down. He swam off her made it to the tower at the marina office (the office was underwater) and hung on to the tower until the storm was over.
After he refloated her, he started pulling his ruined belongings out of her. He pulled about 10 garbage bags full of his stuff out, and got so disheartened, between that and the experience of the hurricane, he just couldn't go back on her anymore. She wasn't insured, but FEMA considered her his domicile so he got FEMA money, and he still was the harbormaster at the marina. But after Ike the yardspace tripled, and labor tripled and supplies of everything were quickly wiped out, and making it tougher was the local infrastructure simply wasn't functioning, and much of it was destroyed anyway.
What happened with most of the boats that were insured and ended up on land was the insurance companies simply totalled them and wrote out checks, often selling them back to the owners for pennies on the dollar and leaving it to them to salvage, because it was cheaper for them to do it that way then to pay the actual costs of salvage and repair, even on relatively minor damage, because the costs of everything sky-rocketed.
So Bill couldn't afford to salvage her, even though he himself worked in a marina, along with the trauma of the hurricane and the depression from losing all his possessions and his boat being trashed. His only real option was to sell her for whatever anyone would pay, or take her out and scuttle her.
Well anyway, I don't know the details of your communication problems with the broker, but I can tell you that his office was totally underwater during the hurricane and was destroyed, and that he was operating out of his truck using it as an office. The wireless and cell phone structure of Kemah and the whole coast in that area was heavily damaged, and alot of the coordination I did to make things happen to get her out I did face to face and intermittently on the phone. Even the bill of sale for her was hand written and we did separate copies by hand because he didn't have a printer for his laptop and no way to make photocopies. When he was able to make his way through the damage to get to his office after the storm, he found two boats inside his office up on the second floor. They were working on rebuilding the place the whole time I was making trips down there salvaging Dream Ketcher, and he was still operating out of his truck when I finally got her towed across the bay.
Most of the business I did down there making it all come together was done in cash or money orders or credit card convenience checks, because no-one's systems for taking credit cards and electronic payments were working.