Hello from Beaufort

[DBG8492]

Hey there everyone!

I'm currently living on a sailboat - an Irwin 34 Citation, to be exact - but we just finished doing a complete cosmetic rebuild on her and she's now under contract for sale. Once that deal is done, my girlfriend and I will be moving to a trawler. More space, and I'd like to get back to more of what I enjoyed about my time on the water in the Navy - coastal waters and river exploration...maybe even do The Loop - who knows? I just love living on the water...

We're looking at a few trawlers and hopefully will settle on one here in the next 30 days or so.

In the meantime, I will likely spend some time here asking for advice at first and hopefully eventually being able to give some

See you around!

Tim

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard. Ask questions, we love that.

 

[Peter B]

Welcome to TF. We all understand. Many of us came through sailboats to the powered cruiser life. Both are good. Both have their special aspects. However, the life on a power cruiser is more spacious and comfortable, and less labour intensive, (at least when on the move - re maintenance, not so much), and with less dependence on the weather and wind directions, so suits better as one gets older. And, dare I say it - a bit less flexible..?

 

[kehoff]

welcome , good luck on the search

 

[DBG8492]

A long time coming...

Long time no see, LOL

We ended up closing the deal on our sailboat near the end of March.

After that, we started the long slog of looking for what we considered the "perfect" Trawler for two adults and two large dogs to live on forever - more or less - in our price range, which was admittedly low. Having just been through a rather long process of bringing an old sailboat back to life, we figured we could get more boat for our money by looking for something just a bit distressed.

What followed was an endless stream of dead-ends, broken boats, and lots of headaches and heartache. The headaches belonged to us, and the heartache belonged to a few owners who - during the survey - realized that they didn't know as much about their boats as they thought they did. Very sad, TBH.

Between then and now, we drove over 6000 miles looking for our boat, and we finally found her when I stumbled across a Craigslist post down in Florida. A 1986 Marine Trader Sundeck 36 with a single Lehman 120 and a Westerbeke genny.

I usually don't call folks who post boats on Craigslist, but something told me I should call this one. So I did. Ended up having about ten conversations with the guy over about a week, and in those talks, I got the back story.

He bought the boat from the estate of his best friend, who'd died of Covid in 2021. There was some wrangling over the estate so the boat sat until finally the dust cleared and his family didn't know what to do with it, so they offered it to him - for way less than market value. Way, way less. He thought he might keep her so he let her sit for a bit and then decided he didn't have time, so he tossed up on CL, and I was the first person to call.

During the aforementioned 6000 miles of driving and looking, I'd met and become friends with a surveyor who just happened to have a boat in the Keys and was - as luck would have it - down in that area getting some work finished up. I called him and went over to take a look. Five minutes after getting there, he texted and said "Send him money."

We drove down the following Saturday and closed the deal - and we paid exactly what the owner paid plus dock fees for the five months he'd owned her - far less than market value.

She's not perfect, and she's going to need a very good cleaning and bottom job, and a lot of TLC in the long run - couple of wet spots from sitting and the usual stuff you'd expect. But she's awesome. The motor is strong and other than being exceptionally dirty, she's none the worse for wear.

This weekend we start a fifteen-day sprint to get all the important stuff done and whatever she needs purchased and installed. After that, we drive back home, pack our stuff into a moving truck, and head down to load her up and get underway heading north before hurricane season really kicks into gear.

The plan is to get her above the hurricane line, haul her out, and spend until at least December there working on her before heading south to enjoy the winter.

Wish us luck! I will be posting more I assure you...

 

[Comodave]

Good luck. We will need photos…

 

[Woodstock]

Good luck!! Will you be in Beaufort NC or SC or somewhere else?

 

[DBG8492]

Thanks so much!

The plan for now is to go every day that the weather permits with a stop in Beaufort, SC to rest, reprovision, and and ferry some more stuff from where it is now in central SC.

After which, we plan to head to North Carolina and find a boatyard to haul her out.

 

[DBG8492]

Here are some photos of her.

Unfortunately, the "meatball" teak plaque on the flybridge is one of the things that's suffered the most and is likely beyond restoration. I hope to find a replacement.