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Old 30-04-2009, 10:13   #16
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Originally Posted by keelbolts View Post
a sail-able fixer-upper might be a good deal... "how much fixing up is really necessary..."
Yep, I’m with ya on this… sailable to me is one that I can day-sail, even weekend with a degree of comfort… okay, not ready to round Cape Horn, or Cape anything, but structurally/functional enough to be enjoyable while ya putter…
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Old 30-04-2009, 10:18   #17
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I'm not sure you can assume any used boat is turn key, so keep that in mind. However, if you feel a boat is a fixer upper from the start, you will likely feel it was a "salvage" by the time you are done! If you are going to pay for "turnkey" be sure to test every item on the boat. No excuses from the seller like "if we start up the watermaker we'll have to pickle it". Beware of things like only testing the refrigeration for half an hour, many will start up and seem to be getting cold but stop cooling in a couple of hours. Best to have it turned on the night before the survey... etc...
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Old 30-04-2009, 10:36   #18
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DCStrng,
Yeah, that's about what I was thinking.
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Old 30-04-2009, 15:56   #19
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Well we bought an ex-charter boat in April last year and have since done 13,000 nms.
During that time we broke 1 block, 1 split pin, changed the rudder bearings after 10k miles (we knew it had to be done in the survey) when we painted her bum, and changed the annode in the oil cooler.

This year we have 5,000 nms to do and are confi=dent the boat is fine.
We do need new sails at the end of that


So, yes, you can buy a boat that goes.....
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Old 30-04-2009, 16:26   #20
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I certainly agree with used boat prices down, there is generally less incentive to purchase a fixer-upper. The problem with generalities however, is they are never universally true. I also agree that few used boats are truly turn-key as it sounds like Mark J was fortunate enough to find.

I've had both turn-key and fixer uppers and both had their place. On one boat I moved half the interior around, re-did all plumbing and most all wiring. This included sawing out the old v-birth to make a head and creating a new galley. This took a great deal of time, but with KISS systems, it really wasn't that expensive. The advantage to doing all this is it allowed me to purchase a less expensive boat that would not meet my needs and with little money change it into one that did. It also allowed me to go cruising with systems that were all new, I knew inside out and were easy to trouble shoot.
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Old 30-04-2009, 16:42   #21
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ya know, I love MarkJ's attitude........buy a boat and go! While the other 90% of us sit around deciding we have too many through hulls, unsightly decks, rearranging things, researching what the new "best thing" is, going ga ga over electronics and stainless steel shotguns, theorizing what we'll want "out there".............. they're gone .......and all that has faded away to the bottom of their list I bet......... :>)
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Old 30-04-2009, 19:07   #22
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So, yes, you can buy a boat that goes
Being lucky still counts!

You check things as you go along and once the survey is done you really do the serious checking and find the rest of the list. Surveyors have a short time to find it all - they can't. They can be wrong on the little stuff too. It's the little stuff that drives you nuts. Finding the problems at that point is harder than fixing them. It may not be cheap either.

You need to make your own process of checking. It's amazing the number of things that work during the survey and sea trail but fail the day after (so it seems).
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Old 01-05-2009, 04:29   #23
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It is possible to find good deals but you have to look. We wanted a boat that had a good hull and deck but that didnt have many (or any) of the systems that we wanted so that we could put them in new. We found a Caliber 33 on a fresh water lake in Tennessee where we would never have thought to look except the broker and my wife convinced me to take a flyer and go ("if you are in the market for this kind of boat you really wont be disappointed if you go look"). They were right. A fresh water boat that was sailed gently and was in great shape. It had some ancient non functional electronics and needed new sails (which everybody admitted). But there is a lot to be said for a solid boat that was built right to begin with. Yes, the refit costs a lot but then we know that the things we installed are new and done correctly. Sure there are some surprises (it is impressive what some people call a "connection" when it comes to wiring) but in a boat that is built right in the first place it is usually fairly easy to track down what the P.O. did and see if it needs correcting. So, count this as a vote for looking in fresh water and also at boats that had a good build quality in the first place. It took us a while but they are out there if you look.
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Old 04-05-2009, 11:25   #24
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In the actual market it is better to look for a boat ready to sail away with a discounted price there are plenty of them.
If you buy a new boat at discounted price you will have to spend a lot of money to make it ready to cruise buying all the missing equipment, like anchors, electronics,kitchen pots and appliances,down to bed sheets, etc...
Looking for a fixer upper is only valid if you looked at expensive boat, over 250k, the higher the price the highest the discount will be. In that range buyers do not want to fixed anything. Consequently if anything is wrong the boat will sell for 50k or 100k or more, less than normal market value.
Buying for 20k a boat that need some fixing and has a market value of 30 or 35k is not a good option today.
But never forget that in general a boat maintenance will cost you 10% of the original price per year.A little bitless on small unit but not much. The only way to get away from this rule is to buy a ready to cruise boat from someone that has just done a nice prep to go sailing and used it with a minimum maintenance for 3 to 4 years and put it back on the market with a discount.
Now with this idea in mind, this is not the boat you want to end up buying, it will look cheaper and with a bit of fixing to do but will have a lot of bad surprised as you start sailing and even a surveyor will not catch all the problems.
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