Is She A Project Boat and What To Do?

[chauser]

We won't be onboard to look at the situation ourselves for another week, but I am in touch with a number of resources, so slowly putting a plan together. I'll post more when I know it. Thanks to all for the ongoing input on our situation.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
"Is she a project boat?" As has been mentioned...it depends. What is someone's "project" may not be a project to someone else.


I tend to agree that questionable fuel tanks, inoperable major items (engines, generators etc) can be considered projects that would take a goodly amount of $$ to rectify where is the line drawn?


Does less than pristine brightwork or lack of the latest electronics move a "good buy" into the "project boat category? In a lot of cases we're talking about vessels that are 20, 30 or 40+ years old. Yes, a seller has to be realistic setting a value on a boat BUT a buyer also has to realize that this is NOT a factory fresh item that he or she gets to unwrap.


Edit: In another thread (Interesting boats) a boat was recently posted as having been owned by James Cagney. Tongue in cheek, how much does THIS add to resale value? (IMO, nothing at all )

 

[Derik]

So you have a mid 80's boat with a leaky fuel tank, wood work needing attention and a bad generator... Your no different than most boat owners of mid 80's trawlers they are all projects!

If you want a newer boat then sale her but at least you know all the issues.

 

[Max1]

HAHA... No offence, but you should see my project boat. It makes Chauser's look like a walk in the park

Seriously though, when we were thinking of getting into the boating lifestyle and consulted with our boating friends, we discovered there were two schools of thought. There is the "NEVER EVER buy a project boat" and "If you are up for the challenge, why not?

Project boats are not for everyone. They do require a lot of sweat equity. We bought one, and yes it does need a lot of work. But I love doing the work and my wife and I see it as a hobby, not just slave labour.
If you are not up to doing the work, its time to move on.

PS-

3: Does anyone have experience with donating a vessel like this and, if so; who, where, how?

If we didn't already have a boat I would have loved to have been the recipient of a donated OS 42

 

[chauser]

Hi All. Thought I'd drop in with a quick update on our situation. It was suggested that we run the boat to see if the fuel leak was more prominent when underway. Good news, bad news! The leak is apparently very small as we've had little further seepage since our lovely ride on the bay. Still needs to be addressed, of course, and we've found someone to offload the fuel, but that will have to wait a little longer... Upon our return, and back in the engine room to check the status, we found little fuel spillage... and a very steady drip of water from the port side stern tube/shaft assembly. Nope, not a simple hose problem; metal corrosion. Yikes.

So we went from turning off the bilge pumps to keep fuel from escaping, to turning them back on to keep from sinking the old girl! She's now safely on the hard to deal with that problem, then we'll get back to the tank issue. I do think we've 'fallen back in love' with her though.