One boat you might want to take a look at. Noticed it on Yacht World.
--
https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/20...e=standard listing&refSource=standard listing
More seriously, some things are common to many older trawlers. For example, leaking windows are common, as is water damage around the windows. Failing teak decks are common, as is resulting softness to the structural deck underneath. Where teak decks have been removed, it was often because they were failing, and the softened underlying structural decks may not have been fixed, just glassed over and painted. Hatches and portholes often have bad gaskets and/or screw downs that leak and can damage the wood around. Sometimes doors and "improvised" hatches aren't weather proofed. Sometimes deck or house fittings leak. Sometimes bulkheads and interior paneling can be soft as a result. Sometimes the structural plywood of the house can also be soft. Owners often paint over, veneer over, carpet over, or otherwise cover up the water damage, without fixing the root cause. Often what looks clean is freshly painted and feels soft or has moisture.
Some of this is to be expected in most any mid-priced trawler from the 1970s and 1980s. Maybe even some from the early-to-mid 1990s. Everyone has their own threshhold. But, if the deeper the damage is, the harder it is to fix. Once structural plywood around windows are rotten, it needs to be replaced -- or there is nothing to which to reseal the windows. Once interior panelling is soft, it can't really be covered up or painted. It needs to be replaced and then veneered (of non-matching) or painted.
If one is going to walk away from any boat with signs of these things -- the cost of boat buying just went up, by a lot. But, once also doesn't want to buy one that is really, really far gone, unless one is looking to use the boat without caring at all about these things, and is getting a huge discount (to possibly be the boat's last owner). Somewhere in the middle between "museum piece" and "gonner" is the boat that most people want. Having a good sense of your tolerances, how much work you are willing to do, how much you are willing to pay people to do, and what your budget is as compared to boats on the market will really help.
Also, the various boats in the fleet of used recreational boats get used very differently. This includes trawlers. I like to think of them as falling into three, maybe four, classes:
1) Slip boats (weekend condos, liveaboards, cocktail party boats, BBQ boats, etc)
2) Social cruisers used only in local, largely protected waters (Cocktail cruises, grandkid afternoon fishing trips, 4th of July fireworks)
3) Full use boats (Used routinely in open water)
4) True long range cruisers (If you'd like to add this class)
My observation is that one is much, much better off buying a boat within the class of one's intended use.
If, for example, all you want is a boat for social reasons at the slip, there is no reason to buy one that is an open water boat. You'll pay more than you need to buy it. And, you'll lose all of the extra money. After a couple or small few years of not leaving the slip, it won't be an open water cruiser anymore. Boats like to get run. And, even if you spend the money to maintain it as an open water boat -- that is wasted on your use.
Similarly, if you want to cruise or deep sea fish or whatever, you'll be better off buying a boat from someone who does that, or recently has. At worst, there is a little deferred maintenance. If you try, for example to take "champagne cruiser" and turn it into an open water boat, you are likely to find a huge amount of deferred maintenance. The local social user doesn't need things to be reliable. They use them until they are dead then patch them up. What is the worst thing that happens? They come in on one engine or get a short tow? The person going out 25-50 miles or planning to cruise for days at a time? They can't have a boat that works like that, they don't want to turn into a rubber duck bouncing around the ocean helplessly while waiting for a tow to a strange port. They need a boat that works not only right now, but truly reliably.
And, taking a boat that has been a "liveaboard" and turning into a useful boat? Ouch! I did that once. It cost me many tens of thousands of dollars more than I could have bought it for. The happiest folks were the ones I sold it to -- they got a great boat for what I could have paid for it. And, I am far from alone in having tried that route -- and paid for it.
As far as true long range cruisers. These folks have boats that are in about the same class as open water boats. But, they often have tons and tons and tons of spare parts aboard. It isn't uncommon for them to have spare shafts, props, coolers, alternators, starters, injectors, gaskets, etc. These are close to worthless for someone who isn't worried about getting fixed in a foreign port. Most of them will never be needed. But, to someone who is going to spend months in Mexico or the Bahamas or wherever -- they are the difference between enjoying the life with piece of mind and cruising months or years on end -- and getting stuck at some random port for weeks or longer, waiting for parts, and paying way, way more than they are worth when they should be cruising.
The bottom line is that if one buys a boat in a higher class than their intended use, they are paying more than they need -- and will likely lose the "extra" by the time they go to sell it , because the boat will float down to the class in which it is used.
And, if one buys a boat lower than the class than the intended use, one will likely pay a lot more to rehab it than they could have just to buy one in the condition that they need, they'll take a lot more risk in terms of budget and time to do that, and they'll spend a lot more time trying to get the boat in shape than otherwise, which means less time doing the type of boating that they want.
So, I'd suggest thinking about how you'll use the boat -- and buying a boat that is currently used that way, or has been used that way within no more than ~1-2 years. (It isn't uncommon for older folks to "wind down" their boat usage, and then sell. If this takes too long, the boat drops a class or more. But, 1-2 years it is normally still within the same class, just with more deferred maintenance.
