I'm not sure whether this fits in with the title of the thread or not, but I think in a way it does.
One thing I am sure of, in a way I'm kinda relieved I hadn't joined such a forum as this before I bought our boat. Even though there is so much good advice to be found on here.
Why..? Because if I had, and, (here is where I think it does fit in with the title), if I had described the boat, and the shape it was in in detail, many on here would have advised me to run, and run fast, as they have advised many others, and meant it in the nicest possible way.
It was a fixer upper all right. I have to admit that. However, I was so keen to get back into boating, having started out in sail boats, that I cashed in some super when able at 55, and bought the best I could afford, and which most matched the design we, my wife and I, aspired to. She held out for a sedan style, with larger aft cockpit, rather than aft cabin, and she was right.
There was heaps wrong with it. It had all the issues a Taiwan built CHB 34 typically had. Some partly fixed by the PO, some not. Never-the-less I had a lot of fun bring it back to as good a condition as I could. Everything worked..! And...we didn't have to finance it..!
Sure, there have been many times, looking at the pics of boats used and new on here that lucky members have posted, and wished I could have afforded a newer and better boat, but it was not to be. At least we were out there and doing it.
To afford a newer and better boat I'd have had to wait until I retired - which is what many coming on here do. And that often worries me. Because if we had done that, which would have been 16 years later, it would have coincided with the time my wife developed some health issues which would have made boating impossible. None of us knows what lies around life's corners, after all.
So, while boatless now, I enjoy the forum, and helping where I can, and rejoice in the fact we did take the plunge that many would not have. That many would have been talked out of, and we would not have enjoyed cruising the length and breadth of our lovely Moreton Bay, here in Queensland, for the sixteen years that we did. As the lawyers say...my case rests...and it rests easier than it might have, if we had not done what we did - when we did. Just sayin'...