Budget for Engine Removal

[IrieSailor]

Last few tid-bit's of info : It's sort of hard to understand until you've been in the situation but once your boat becomes your full time home it takes a lot of effort and energy to push yourself to go on little day sails. The sort of sailing you will want to do to begin learning how to sail. I don’t know why this is, but it just happens. You start leaving things all over the boat and kids leave things all over the boat. Storage space on the boat that should be free in order to go sailing ends up full of junk. You ve put in a full week of work and Saturday comes around and it's a perfect day to take the boat out but the thought of all the preparation work it will take to get the boat ready again to sail sort of put's you (and everyone else) off of the idea. It'll happen ! So I'm just giving you fair and honest warning. If you can manage to run your household (boat) like Napoleon for a while you might escape this inevitable live aboard conundrum of never taking the boat out.
Also If you do buy a boat with an older Engine and want to replace it: (Unless it’s an Atomic 4 Please don’t contemplate replacing the Engine with a different style of engine !! Pull it out and have your own engine re-built or replace it with a re-built version of the exact same engine (same transmission as well). You don’t even need to have the boat hauled out of the water to pull an engine. Can be done at a marina that has a forklift ($200-300) plus dockage fees. You can pull a Perkins 410.8 out and place it on a palette and have it shipped off re-built and shipped back to you for around $3500 (includes shipping cost). If you pay a diesel mechanic to do all of the grunt work and you oversee things you can knock on another $1500-2000. What I mean by oversee things is you do not call up a boat yard marina and say: “Can you organize an engine re-placement for me ?” Then yes it will cost $20,000. There’s a ton of info on this forum that can walk you through the whole process. If you work on old VW’s and don’t mind squeezing into tight spaces then it would be a walk in the park to do most of the work yourself. 5 hours max to disconnect the engine from the shaft. Anyway… I tend to ramble lol. I just don’t want you to be afraid of buying an otherwise perfect boat just because it has an older engine with too many hours on it.