Soon to be new trawler owner one way or the other

Hi everyone, I'm Charles from Washington NC. I'm finally about to actually live out the dream I've been working toward for the last 4 or 5 years. I bought an old cheap 50 year old sailboat to live on, had an amazing adventure fixing her up, running her 250 miles home down the ICW basically like Apollo 13, bare bones as possible, lots of rigging and straight wired stuff to run the engine and charge my phone that had the navigation app on it. , Everything else was independent battery powered. That's a long story for another time. Right now I've sold my house, about to buy a trawler to live on and take offshore a few times each summer for diving and fishing. Rest of the year will be river travel and fishing in the Pamlico sound, etc.. I'm looking at a possible island Gypsy 40 foot sedan with twin Caterpillar motors. I've seen the online review of IGs though talking about metal throughhulls bedded in fiberglass, lead solder in the water tank, etc.. so I'm looking for opinions on a 1987 IG 40 foot sedan. I don't want to buy another boat that ends up with so much project creep I can't ever live on it. Thanks in advance for any advice. Types of boats to buy as suggestions are welcome as well.

Drummer79 said:

Hi everyone, I'm Charles from Washington NC. I'm finally about to actually live out the dream I've been working toward for the last 4 or 5 years. I bought an old cheap 50 year old sailboat to live on, had an amazing adventure fixing her up, running her 250 miles home down the ICW basically like Apollo 13, bare bones as possible, lots of rigging and straight wired stuff to run the engine and charge my phone that had the navigation app on it. , Everything else was independent battery powered. That's a long story for another time. Right now I've sold my house, about to buy a trawler to live on and take offshore a few times each summer for diving and fishing. Rest of the year will be river travel and fishing in the Pamlico sound, etc.. I'm looking at a possible island Gypsy 40 foot sedan with twin Caterpillar motors. I've seen the online review of IGs though talking about metal throughhulls bedded in fiberglass, lead solder in the water tank, etc.. so I'm looking for opinions on a 1987 IG 40 foot sedan. I don't want to buy another boat that ends up with so much project creep I can't ever live on it. Thanks in advance for any advice. Types of boats to buy as suggestions are welcome as well.

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Congratulations.

I am new here myself. My Wife is an Island girl with a mariner family, and this year she executed her long planned scheme to get me (us) to buy a boat. We've had a small sailng dinghy for years. We are also big into RV travelling. My wife convinced me that boating is just RV'ing with more beach time
This is a big step up for us. Spent the last half of this summer looking at trawlers and learning from our friends that own them and also learning what we like and don't like. Long story short, we are the proud owners of a Marine Trader 36. She's got good bones and needs lots of TLC, which we are up for the challenge. We've been lurking on these forums and learning a ton from others here.
We're looking forward to next summer when we can take her out and learn how to operate her.

My best advice to you is to visit your local marina's. Look at the trawlers that are there. I cant tell you how many times we were looking at a trawler and the door popped open and the person inside said "hello" We would reply "we love your boat" and before you know it, we are on the boat talking shop. You would be surprised to find that most trawler owners would be happy to let you onto their boat to show you around and talk to you about their boat. They are all so friendly and informative. At least that is what happened to us. We learned so much from them and from what they were able to show us/tell us.

Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard.

Welcome aboard to both of you guys... and gal(s). It took me a while in life to finally realize that I get what I pay for. Not sure if that was before or after I finally had enough money to pay for the quality I wanted. Even after the purchase of my current boat, which was essentially new in the box, I spent a lot of time making it into what I wanted it to be; some 68 separate projects large and small. While that was mostly personality-driven, you need to make your own choices about whether the used boat you will be looking at will be worth your time and money to do what is required for you to make it truly yours.

Greetings,
Yes. welcome aboard to you both (all).