Potential Trawler Owner

remwines · 07-07-2013, 07:24 PM

Hello everyone. Name is Bob, wife Lori and son Liam. We live in the Northern California Foothills about 100 mile east of the SF Bay. We have had trailer boats for many year and currently have an Alumaweld for lakes and rivers, and a 23' Blackman Albacore Special for all our ocean and bay adventures. While the Blackman is a great fishing boat, the family wants something we can all stay on and enjoy. So, I joined the forum a couple of years ago and started reading.

A week ago, I put a deposit down on a '79 Defever DownEast 40 in San Pedro that has been on the market for a long time. That particular boat has been talked about several times by another forum member who decided not to buy it. It needs a lot of work and updates. I won't bore anybody just yet with question, but if it survives the sea trial, pull out and surveyor on Thursday, I'll complete the purchase. Then I will have plenty of questions. The hull number AAY00060579401, so it appears to be the 6th DF40 out of DownEast in Santa Ana, Ca. If anyone is familiar with this boat, please feel free to tell me about it, good or bad.

Thanks to all for the great info and stories.

Wxx3 · 07-07-2013, 07:36 PM

What's the name? and how much are they asking?

remwines · 07-07-2013, 08:47 PM

Boats name is "Chiquito". They dropped the advertised price recently to $49,900. As we all know, it's a buyers market and my accepted bit was...... considerably less. From what I can tell so far, this boat really needs someone not afraid to put in a lot of work, and money, but mostly work. Will know more after we pull it and have the bottom cleaned.

Victor_Chat · 07-11-2013, 08:51 AM

Welcome aboard. About the same story with our Gulfstar. We saw she had "good bones" and the survey went well. After two years, she's almost looking brand new again.

sunchaser · 07-11-2013, 01:16 PM

Remwines

It is not uncommon to find a DeFever that someone has already done a lot of rehab work on, then for whatever reasons losing interest. Be sure you have listed all the work to be done with real world costs - you may be surprised at how cheap an already re-worked DF could be purchased for.

remwines · 07-12-2013, 06:05 PM

Thanks for the replies folks. I just got back from SoCal after having a surveyor go over to boat, do the sea trial and pulled it out. The surveyor seemed very thorough and found the expected minor issues. He found the old Defever to be a fairly sound platform to work from. The only exception was oil spurting passed the seal for the fuel cutoff rod on front of the injector pump. I believe the pump will have to be gone through to replace the seal. A mechanic will look at it today.

It looks like we will be the third owners. Current owner still has all of the original paperwork and brochures when purchased in New Port, Ca. in 1979. The boat appears to be pretty much original, absent shag carpet and disco ball. My wife and I are looking forward to bring it to the SF East Bay and making it ours.

remwines · 07-12-2013, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Victor_Chat

Welcome aboard. About the same story with our Gulfstar. We saw she had "good bones" and the survey went well. After two years, she's almost looking brand new again.

Good looking boat! The Defever still has what's left of the original gel coat, but will need paint. It currently has a kind of a rust colored trim, but I will be going with the blue you have on your boat.

Victor_Chat · 07-13-2013, 02:05 PM

Thanks, I believe it's still the original gel coat on our boat. We were thinking she needed a new paint job, though after a good compounding and waxing (done professionally), she started sparkling again. Now to fix a few spots here and there.