Saving a Yard Queen vs. Not Doing That

[raahell]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Our approach was to buy a perfectly good "project boat". I.E. one which can be used immediately as a sailboat but needs a lot of work to make it a good liveaboard and ocean cruiser.

The we did the project was to do it in small bits so as to never take the boat out of service for long periods. (I mean two weeks would be a long period for us if we couldn't sail the boat).

This way we kept the rewards coming (sailing) and still made steady progress on the project.

I agree with this. Prospective boat owners should not be led to believe that it's a "one or the other" choice. Middle ground is possible and can get you the best of both worlds, by careful purchase decisions and prioritizing/staging of projects.

Wingsail says they're never out of service for more than a couple weeks but, clearly, not every project can be done in such short periods. Even so, a middle ground can be found.

Case in point: We recently bought a steel sailboat. During the pre-purchase I tried to insure that it was sailworthy as is. We then had a good 1/2 season of sailing (we bought in end of July) during which we found things we wanted to improve but otherwise confirmed that she was a good fit for us. Now she's on the hard for the Winter/Spring while I strip, repair and refinish the hull, change out seacocks and make a new rudder. Those are not the kind of projects that can typically be done in a couple weeks - especially when weather is not cooperating - but is well worth the time and effort. At least we now know she's sound below the waterline, which is huge for any boat owner.

As we wrap up the below-the-waterline refit, we look forward to 3-5 years of sailing but plan to tackle lots of little deck and interior projects in between voyaging, like any good owner will! These day-long and week-long projects will not detract from the sailing experience. Every little improvement only heightens our pride of ownership and makes the boat a little easier/safer/more enjoyable to operate and live in.

After said 3-5 years I'll want to take another winter lay-up period to take the interior apart, to get at stuff that is hard to access now. I'll tackle issues around electrical, interior layout, engine, install a new galley, etc. Maybe that takes a full year to complete. Does that mean we can't sail during that time? Hell no! We'll plan a dry charter, crew on a passage or something.

Another benefit of the staged approach is that we'll have spread the costs of repairs and improvements over a longer time period, so that we don't feel it in the pocketbook as much.

Having said all of this, it is vitally important to "know oneself" and to act accordingly. If you're not handy and have little interest in boat construction and systems, do yourself and everyone else a big favour and stick with boats that are newer and previously well maintained. Yes you'll pay more initially but it's a wiser investment than paying less for a fixer upper only to have that investment squandered when you try to off-load the project onto someone else or - worst case - abandon the boat in some yard after realizing you've bitten off more than you can chew.

[hpeer]

I own 2 steel sailboats, each about 35 years old. We have had one 18 years and the other 12 years. One was in pretty good shape when purchased the other pretty excellent shape.

None the less I have found problems with both. I have never had a steel leak, but I have replaced some steel. As long as you can gain interior access this is fairly simple and not terribly expensive or time consuming. Both boats are dry, and tough.

The other bits also wear out; plumbing, electronics, sails, etc. if you keep a boat ling enough you come to a point where it needs some significant work. If you try to keep up with things then it is just routine; call it a rolling refit. If you let stuff go, then you have a decision to sell the worn boat or fix her up. I think its when people get stuck in this decision that births a lot of yard queens.

We had planned being in Rio Dulce this year to do some needed work and upgrades. Due Covid we are using this down time to do the work in North Carolina. Some of the work is needed repair, some upgrades, some kind of a mix. But it has been a LOT of work and money. Yet we don't regret it.

When done, as much as one can be “done” we will have the same boat but modified to our needs and wants and uses. It will have become a better boat for us. I think we view it as an investment in our future as near full time live aboards. It would be very difficult for us to replace our big boat for a reasonable cost, considering the customization we have.

It is a matter of personal taste. We wont sell these boats anytime soon, baring black swan events such as covid. They serve a core purpose in how we want to live. If we were dirt dwellers things would be different. But we have more or less succumbed to the “wet” side of life, for better or worse. No going back until forced.

Summary: all boats are yard queens in the making. The he path you choose to deal with that is a personal choice. The worst choice is to dither and let a boat rot while you ponder.

[raahell]

Originally Posted by hpeer

I own 2 steel sailboats, each about 35 years old. We have had one 18 years and the other 12 years. One was in pretty good shape when purchased the other pretty excellent shape... if you keep a boat ling enough you come to a point where it needs some significant work. If you try to keep up with things then it is just routine; call it a rolling refit. If you let stuff go, then you have a decision to sell the worn boat or fix her up. I think its when people get stuck in this decision that births a lot of yard queens... Summary: all boats are yard queens in the making. The path you choose to deal with that is a personal choice. The worst choice is to dither and let a boat rot while you ponder.

Wow! A fleet owner of steel sailboats!

I like the term "Rolling refit" and agree with everything this poster has said. But then we steel boat owners have to stick together.

[Mauruuru]

Some people have boats to sail, some have boats to party on that never sail, some of us have boats we sail and work on because we like the activity and the knowledge gained. To each his own....I wouldn't have a new boat I wasn't working on.

[jeepers]

I always wonder how much of a "systems" investigation took place on these long term project boats people undertake. In my personal & professional experience. The person whom helps with a systemic approach and comprehensive plan is far more helpful than the constructive help, friends bring physically to the project. One of the best boat "Plans" I have seen is the project boat "Tally Ho".
I wonder how many of these project boats started with a "Plan". Did the plan end at the point the boat was bought. Few say if or what were their consulting sources. Be that a surveyor, boat builder, sailor, multiple boats-owner, friend with a boat, project manager and or all of the above. Was there a Comprehensive Plan, a Financial Plan, a Time Plan, a Project Plan, a Job/Task Plan, a Contingency Plan(B), an exit Plan, a Personal Plan, a Motivational Plan. It is not just finishing the project. As we all know, you are never finished on a boat. But at least succeed in the "plan". Maybe, there will be an After Plan.
For me a perfect project is when the original enthusiasm has transformed to equivalent energy in pride of work and completion of the project and plan.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by jeepers

...Was there a Comprehensive Plan, a Financial Plan, a Time Plan, a Project Plan, a Job/Task Plan, a Contingency Plan(B), an exit Plan, a Personal Plan, a Motivational Plan. It is not just finishing the project. As we all know, you are never finished on a boat. But at least succeed in the "plan". Maybe, there will be an After Plan...

So, you'll need several consultants, a glass worker (or steel worker), a wood worker, painter, a mechanic, an electrician, and a few other workers, and a three person project office.

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by Carl-T705

. Dare you say shoddy tape that fail after 30 years... How long is tape supposed to last in a marine environment?

don't want to put words in the OP's mouth however i suspect he was saying the repair was shoddy...not the tape

mind you, any repair that lasts 30 years is worth respect !

cheers,

[hpeer]

As to the “Plan” we had a survey done.

The less said about its usefulness or accuracy the better.

I firmly believe that this he prospective owner needs to do his own survey, especially on a steel boat. If the surveyor picks up something useful that is a bonus, don't count on it.

There ARE good surveyors.

[ktbaker]

A Friend of mine had a 30 foot Westerly that I helped him work on. Old but good boat in so so condition. I learned enough to tackle a sunken 22 foot Catalina. Yard guy said it sunk because of owner stupidity not because of a hole in the boat and I took a chance. Boat was raised and dried out without too much fuss then the work began. It was fun though. Not a large or complex boat and a very large owner base and factory support perfect for a single guy to fool with on the weekends. Deck was spongy and the hatch was broken. I cut out the hatch pulled as much of the core out as I could and filled it with git rot and west system. Glassed in a new hatch found a girl that was willing to go sailing. Had a ton of fun on that boat on the Chesapeake bay. Ended up marrying the girl (had to, she cleaned the boat for 7 hours with out my asking or even noticing that it need cleaning. You have to marry a girl like that!) Learned how to sail and work with fiberglass. Would I do it again? Only if I did not have a Job and had a great place to work and even then maybe / maybe not.

[Spot]

Originally Posted by ktbaker

Ended up marrying the girl (had to, she cleaned the boat for 7 hours with out my asking or even noticing that it need cleaning. You have to marry a girl like that!)

Does she have a sister much like herself?

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by KelseyB

Hey everyone- I saw a thread recently of someone noting how sad it is to watch project boats get abandoned and demolished, and it got me thinking as someone who just restored a yard queen and successfully took her somewhere (from Annapolis to Florida and then back to Norfolk), and who has done sailing on both project boats and non-project boats (if that is even a thing), that perhaps my personal pro/con list to the "do I restore a boat or do I buy a ready-to-sail one" might help some people who are considering the same thing, or provide some insight to the "where do I start to sail into the sunset?" crowd.

So, my boat is a steel Dutch-built 1974 30-footer. She had been sitting on the hard for somewhere between 10 and 20 years, with the cabin locked and the key lost, and I owned the boat before I had even cut that lock off the cabin and seen the inside. I spent April 2020-January 2021 restoring her, which included replacing the entire drivetrain, all of the electrical, all of the plumbing, all of the rigging minus the mast and boom themselves, repainting everything above and below the waterline and inside, repouring concrete in the bilges, hiring a welder to replace through-hulls that I could snap off with my hand, and tracking down a plethora of parts that no longer existed or were, for some reason, a mix of imperial and metric sizes. And despite the fact that this was a total overhaul, I still managed to miss things. The best example is my stern tube that I've mentioned in a previous post- despite the fact that I thought I knew every square inch of the boat, I managed to miss that it was corroded through in multiple spots and was held together by 30-year-old emergency tape left behind by the previous owner, until that tape decided to retire 1000 miles from home and I was forced into an emergency haulout and month-long weld repair. So, from this experience, this is what I have:

Cons to saving the yard queen:
1. It was not at all cheaper than buying a similar-sized boat that just needed some fresh paint, and obviously took significantly more time (this was my full-time engagement for the entirety of the overhaul; when I wasn't working, I was on the boat)
2. I spent a decent amount of my time worrying that my repairs and upgrades were done incorrectly or not well enough, or that I missed something, and that ended up being confirmed in a few cases, most notably the corroded-through-stern-tube
3. I was lucky that my boat was savable in the first place; if she'd been made out of a lower grade of steel, for example, she probably would've been rusted beyond repair on the stands before I got to her
4. I had no idea how she'd sail during all those months I was working on the hard; there was no opportunity for a trial to see if I liked how she handled before I already invested over half of the time and money that would end up going into her
5. Despite the fact that the shotty tape on my stern tube decided to wait to give until I was back in the ICW and relatively close to a yard, it easily could have gone out a week prior when I was offshore and could not even reach it to slap emergency epoxy/anything on it. The fact that she was a yard queen with large hidden problems could have resulted in complete disaster.

Pros to saving the yard queen:
1. I knew every inch of the boat (except apparently the exact one that I couldn't see or feel and apparently mattered the most), and I knew how all of my systems worked since I installed them myself
2. I got to customize everything to my liking, all the way down to the spacing between the mast steps to fit my exact height
3. I was forced to do tons of research that I may not have done otherwise
4. I was forced to spend a crazy amount of time in hardware stores, etc and interact with experts that I may not have met otherwise
5. I got to save a boat that now has a lot of life left in her
6. There is, in my opinion, twice as much satisfaction in completing a trip under an engine I installed myself, sails and rigging I picked out, and a boat that would have sank at launch if not for the repairs I did than if I had done the same trip in a ready-to-sail boat
7. While I would've learned a lot through this trip in any boat I'd picked, I learned five times as much through the fact that I restored the boat myself first and it made it even more unforgettable

I'm curious to see what others might have to say on it- I'm hoping this thread might turn into something more substantive than the "do it, you'll find purpose and satisfaction" and "don't do it, you'll throw away all your money and injure yourself or worse" back-and-forths that sometimes come out of people asking whether they should get a fixer-upper or not. Because I do think there's a case to be made for both- in my case, I don't plan on saving any other yard queens, but I also wouldn't go back and change a thing about how I saved this one.

I am a boat builder and have refurbished a lot of abondand and border derelict vessels over the last 30 years.
Some were for clients and three for myself.
In my opinion it just about cheaper to build a new hull in metal and fit it out with new equipment then buying a derelict yacht, taking it apart and replacing just about everything.
The other thing is the time factor.
I can build a 40ft metal hull in 4 month and fit it out in a year.
While a rebuild takes twice as long.

[picklesandjesse]

Originally Posted by Spot

Does she have a sister much like herself?

What about her mother????

[KelseyB]

Originally Posted by mako

Kelsey, I don’t think you quite answered the question though, if you had the opportunity to do it again then would you, or would you have preferred something in better shape?

If I could go back in time knowing what I know now about what the refurb would be like, it's honestly hard to say. I feel like I'm significantly more attached to my boat for the fact that I did the rebuild, and I wouldn't want to trade any of the experiences I had doing it, but I'm sure that if I had gotten a boat in better shape I'd probably be just as attached to it and have had a bunch of different experiences that were just as good, just different. But if I had to pick, I'd say I'd still choose to go the way I did.

[KelseyB]

Originally Posted by Carl-T705

. Dare you say shoddy tape that fail after 30 years... How long is tape supposed to last in a marine environment?

Oh the tape itself was obviously very good tape for holding up all that time... I was saying that the fact that any kind of tape was used as a permanent solution for that kind of repair in the first place was the sketchy part.

[marcjsmith]

Originally Posted by Carl-T705

. Dare you say shoddy tape that fail after 30 years... How long is tape supposed to last in a marine environment?

at least 1000 more miles.....or so he hoped...