And the search Begins
And so now the great search for my perfect boat begins. On Friday, after work, I hurried over to see Sue Schaeffer, my Yacht Broker (that sounds so wierd... Oh yes.. I have a Yacht broker... Stanley, pour me another cup of Tea...) Now Sue is Good People... she was VERY patient with me when I wanted to take about 45 Minutes per boat to evaluate it. She is VERY knowledgable in the area of Boats and Sailboats, and answered a lot of the Noob questions that I posed to her. On the schedule were the Tours of 3 different boats.
We started off looking at a Tartan 33. Now I am not considering a boat quite that large, but it would be good to look for experience and comparison's sake. My First Impression of the boat was that it needed work. the running rigging needed to be replaced, and so did the Jib, which was up on a furler... it was cracking and flaking. The Brightwork (the wood on deck, usually Teak) needed some serious refinishing. The inside was OK, and I was very surprised to see how small the V-Berth (the Bed at the front of the boat) was. I thought it would be bigger in a 33 footer.
The next boat on the list was a 1979 CAL 31. Now I like CALs, My friends Mike and Melissa have a CAL 34 (Which is for sale, incidentally) And I really enjoyed sailing on it, so this was going to be interesting. I felt that this boat was OK, but I thought they were asking way too much for her, Almost 25K, that is More than my friends 34 footer. The sails seemed to be in good shape, and did most of the exterior. the interior was showing it's age, but was OK. However, almost ALL of the portlights were cracking (marble like cracking on one side of the glass) or fogging. I will get the pictures I took loaded, as soon as I can get them off my camera... I can't find the PC Cord for it. the exterior brightwork needed work, even though the handrails had covers... The Galley was OK, but evidently the original stove didn't work, so they put a campstove on top and strapped it on. But, still adequate for cooking. There was a nice large Coolerin the counter that would hold quite a bit of food. The V-Berth was good sized and there was lots of hanging storage and other types of storage. The head was very nice. In the Salon, there was this great fold - down table that could be used either for one settee or for both. there were nice curtains for the portlights, and I liked the Teak Strips they put on the floor between the salon and the V-Berth. Not only do they look nice, but they also helped with getting purchase on the angled floor there. Although, overall, I liked the boat, I really couldn't consider it because of the price...
The last boat of the day was a Catalina 30. Now this one was more in my price range ... 16K.
Now this one needed a little bit of work too. the brighwork needed refinishing for example. One thing I really liked is that this one was set up with all the lines running to the cockpit for single handing. The Dodger was in really great shape... it looked new.
It had a wheel helm, which looks really cool, but in reality, there was no autopilot which would be costly, and the wheel takes up quite a bit of space in the cockpit. The compass looked like it had seen better days.
Down the ladder and the first thing you notice is the Galley. It was OK. It had a propane range, plus a microwave and a toaster oven... 2 things I had never seen on a sailboat before. They might be OK when hooked up in a marina, but I think they would put quite a drain on the batteries when on the water. It had double sinks, which I thought was cool.
The V berth looked quite roomy, and in it, I saw this little beauty... a 10 CD changer that was hooked up to the stereo. I am not sure if I would use it, in these days of IPods, but it was cool.
The rest of the boat check out pretty well, although the Engine looked pretty small (11HP I think) and looked like it needed some work, as there was quite a bit of corrosion present.
We started off looking at a Tartan 33. Now I am not considering a boat quite that large, but it would be good to look for experience and comparison's sake. My First Impression of the boat was that it needed work. the running rigging needed to be replaced, and so did the Jib, which was up on a furler... it was cracking and flaking. The Brightwork (the wood on deck, usually Teak) needed some serious refinishing. The inside was OK, and I was very surprised to see how small the V-Berth (the Bed at the front of the boat) was. I thought it would be bigger in a 33 footer.
The next boat on the list was a 1979 CAL 31. Now I like CALs, My friends Mike and Melissa have a CAL 34 (Which is for sale, incidentally) And I really enjoyed sailing on it, so this was going to be interesting. I felt that this boat was OK, but I thought they were asking way too much for her, Almost 25K, that is More than my friends 34 footer. The sails seemed to be in good shape, and did most of the exterior. the interior was showing it's age, but was OK. However, almost ALL of the portlights were cracking (marble like cracking on one side of the glass) or fogging. I will get the pictures I took loaded, as soon as I can get them off my camera... I can't find the PC Cord for it. the exterior brightwork needed work, even though the handrails had covers... The Galley was OK, but evidently the original stove didn't work, so they put a campstove on top and strapped it on. But, still adequate for cooking. There was a nice large Coolerin the counter that would hold quite a bit of food. The V-Berth was good sized and there was lots of hanging storage and other types of storage. The head was very nice. In the Salon, there was this great fold - down table that could be used either for one settee or for both. there were nice curtains for the portlights, and I liked the Teak Strips they put on the floor between the salon and the V-Berth. Not only do they look nice, but they also helped with getting purchase on the angled floor there. Although, overall, I liked the boat, I really couldn't consider it because of the price...
The last boat of the day was a Catalina 30. Now this one was more in my price range ... 16K.
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The rest of the boat check out pretty well, although the Engine looked pretty small (11HP I think) and looked like it needed some work, as there was quite a bit of corrosion present.
All in all this is a boat that I am keeping on my "Possibles" List. It needs some work, but I am not afraid of a little work.
Tomorrow, I will be checking out another Catalina 30. I am excited to see this one, because of all the boats I have researched, this one come closest to fulfilling all of my requirements. We will see.
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