Quote:
Originally Posted by masou
the spreader light is mounted to the mast with a teak T bracket .... not sure how to varnish it .... i need a 20 foot paintbrush >;/
whoever had that wonderful idea ......
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Then you got some climbing to do. Welcome to the world of sail.
Is the ballast lead, or scrap
steel and concrete? A ton of lead can be
sold for more than what you paid for the boat, I think.
Seriously, if you are feeling it, then it is a worthwhile
project. It wont be easy and it won't be
cheap even if you do your own work. Meanwhile you have a floating apartment with very low rent but highish
maintenance. Works out okay. Just sometimes it can be hard to work on a boat that you live on.
My new to me Roberts wasn't in much better shape. Didnt even have a head! No functioning
electrical system. At least no full bilges, so that's something. A huge and beautiful skylight that blocks the view from the
cockpit and is an open invitation to a huge wave to smash through. 14 gallon
fuel tank for a 4-107 of unknown hours, tied in with zip ties. No
engine guages. No proper
anchor rode.
Steering lashed together out of Home Depot components. No genset, no
inverter, two 8Ds but only one takes a charge.
Propane stove. Interior never completed. Sailed her home through the day and night from back side of Gulfport where I found her, no running lights, sailed like a locomotive on meth when I wasn't jury
rigging the
steering.
Surveyor valued the boat at over 3x what I paid for her though, and with a sound hull and an engine that seems to be okay, I think it is a
project worth undertaking and within my financial means to do so. After spending about $60k on her I hope to have a $50k boat. That's the way it goes. However when I subtract the value of the usage I will have put her to during the
refit, that softens the bite a little. As soon as steering is fixed, nav lights work, we have
windlass, chain and
anchor, pieced together three strand running
rigging is replaced with yacht braid, ice machine and bar are installed, we will probably be taking her out every weekend, fair weather or foul. Put a value on that. Anyway if you have some reason to regard the boat as special in some way, and if it still floats and the hull is good, whether it is a "good idea" or not, it can be put to rights. All I have ever owned were fixer uppers or self built boats. Always been on a shoestring. My $9500 Roberts is the most expensive boat I have ever purchased by far. Working on my boat is a fact of life. Sort of like a ball and chain. After a while you kinda get used to it. But the fun stuff eventually makes up for it.
You can do this. Everything you tackle,
research first. If you don't get it right the first time, do it again until you do. Obviously you will be making her fit to
live aboard, first. But to make it seem worth the effort and expense, you need to get her able to sail safely and effectively early on. Using the boat as intended is value added for you. The fact that your dollar invested in the boat only returns about 75 cents then becomes immaterial.
Free or nearly free boats can be very expensive. But you can pay as you go.
Oh and compartmentalized bilges can be a good thing. So consider leaving things as they are. Otherwise, instead of limber holes, consider
bronze valves as low as you can go. Open for simple
single pump pumping. There will be some
water left of course, for you to pick up with the wet vac. Close valves so you can isolate
leaks. Or do it poor man style, with wooden tapered plugs. If you drill through the frames or bulkheads down deep in the
bilge, be sure you know if they are
plywood cored. If so, drill oversize, fill with
epoxy, then drill the
epoxy. Maybe you can prevent the new holes from allowing water ingress into the
plywood, if present. Or go back to plan A and just leave it alone.
Another benefit of a compartmented
bilge is
oil and grease from the engine does not spread its way forward as easily, resulting in less smell.
Do you have a
shower? If so, a very good upgrade, if you have bilge
shower drain, is a
shower sump, to keep shower water out of the bilge. Amazing how shower water can smell up a bilge.
Beware of carbon monoxide! A couple of detectors is a darn good idea, with a
wood stove aboard. Otherwise you could one morning wake up... not. Are you
cooking on the
wood stove, too? Top get hot enough for that? Or are you using
propane or liquid
fuel burner? Any open flame will produce CO, some more than others. Water vapor, too. A flued setup removes most of that and when properly set up can help keep your boat dry inside, assuming
leaks fixed. Unvented, the most modern camping type stove can kill you. Speaking of camping, some shoestring liveaboards avoid cooking altogether, subsisting on raw veggies and canned
food. It's a thing, while waiting for a proper stove to install.
This may sound counterintuitive, being
winter and all, but you ought to have some fresh air venting into the boat near the stove. Helps the burn, helps the
draft, keeps the smoke going up and out. Doesn't have to be a lot, but you need some. The shorter the path to the stove, the better. Worst case is aft cockpit
companionway open, stove well forward, so cold air travels 2/3 the length of the boat before it gets to the stove. You get almost as much
cooling as
heating.
Good luck with the project. The naysayers are right. The enablers are right, too. It's not worth it, but yeah, maybe it is, for all that.