The short version: bought old boat very cheap, now we fix before we sail.
The longer:
This past March or so, I got the sudden urge to go look at sailboats. Been wanting one since, like, forever and I dunno, just happened across some ads for inexpensive boats. After viewing a Pearson 26 that wasn't in half-bad condition for sitting around for 10 years (deceased owner, etc.), we got word of a yard that had several yard-owned boats sitting around for cheap. We visited and the two that I liked best were a Tanzer 22 (I still like it and if somehow I can get a trailer for it and somewhere very inexpensive to put it...) and an old Tartan 27.
Both, like the Pearson, had been sitting around for some time, uncovered and were, well, weathered. Between the two, we were a bit partial to the T27 -- it wasn't in any better overall shape (worse in some ways) but the larger space and standing headroom appealed.
Outside:
Inside looking down at the port quarter berth. That's ice in the bilge. As I joked in another forum where I've been posting my saga, no, the engine is not really in that box. ;)
Starboard quarter berth with one of the Very Smelly Cushions.
And a more general view. It looks better in the picture that it did in person. Lots of peeling paint and very, very smelly (oil).
The grime on the walls wash out in the flash -- envision the level of grime found on around the bottom of the head, turn it into old mold and put it all over the inside of the cabin along with peeling paint and you'll get a better idea of the interior.
At some point, the boat had filled with water that sat for "who knows how long". The waterline looked to be about at the height of the quarter berths.
The engine, an Atomic 4, was no longer a happy camper.
I have never owned a boat, and while I have taken some sailing lessons, that is the extent of my hands on boat skills. Have never worked with fiberglass, fixed an engine, etc. Husband is also not a boat fixer.
Needless to say, it was love at first sight and, as you can guess from the subject line, we bought her for $500. That essentially paid for storage for the next few months so one could even say we got her free for the price of storage.
Now, before we bought her, I did educate myself in "what to look for when looking at old fiberglass boats that need fixing" and about T27s in particular and it did take three visits before we made an offer. I took tons of photos to study and what not, and used a very helpful guide from another site as a sort of amateur survey. I decided to forgo a professional survey since we were only talking $500 here, down from the $2K they were asking.
We knew, or I knew and had conveyed to husband (I was driving the purchase - I know! Isn't the wife supposed to be the one who doesn't want a sailboat? - so I was doing all the research) that the decks were likely to be wet and I also knew, from having read other T27 stories that the chainplate knees, which are encapsulated in fiberglass in really annoying, hard to reach places, would certainly need replacing.
And so on. It wasn't going to just be a case of "wash her out and she'll be ready to go". An additional issue was she was located in Mattapoisett, MA and we are way up in Southern NH -- a 2 hr drive one way minimum. Would be a pain to work on her, but the cost to haul was prohibitive at that time and frankly, I wasn't sure where to store her. We're sufficiently far inland from the wee NH coast that there is no yard "close" by (within an hour's drive) and we live in a condo type community so there's no yard. We'd tackle that problem later and just endure the 4 hour round trip thing for a while (and we did).
The yard insisted on insurance so it turned out I had to have her surveyed after all. I found a great surveyor who didn't mind me/us following him around asking questions. I admit being a bit proud of myself that many of the things he looked and and went over were things I had also done myself and come to the same conclusion. It's great to have validation.
Anyway, turned out that Tigress was in very sound shape -- mostly just suffering from neglect and having been flooded at some time. The PO had done several improvements/replacements before he had passed away (it seemed like he had bought her and was getting her ready to launch before he became too ill - I'm not sure when she was last in the water). For example, the bottom paint had, well, ablated in of rain, but the hull is smooth and fairly fair underneath -- clearly someone had already tended to all that. Clean as a whistle too, nary a barnacle. New Lewmar hatches and a few opening ports, traveler, shiny new huge compass, new head (despite the grime, hoses, head and plumbing had never been used), watercooling (not brand new, but there), very tidy wiring job and so on. The survey came out pretty flattering for a $500 boat (the compass and hatch together probably worth more than what we paid) and most of the must-fix items were things we already knew about. Other than the chainplate knees, the main fix-it is the engine and the acquisition of necessary safety equipment.
So that's my "Came into a Project Boat" story. I'll follow up with some of the things we've done in the past few months.
