Don White wrote:
The guy I used to crew with called tonight. Now he's checking out a
1967 Cal 34 from a neighbouring province.
The former Florida sailboat is listed as a 'project boat'.
I tried to talk him out of it, but the boat is listed dirt cheap.

Get him to sit down with a West Marine catalog and a spreadsheet.
Enter everything he's going to need. Just the wiring, fuse panel,
lights, etc etc, are going to run several thousand dollars. By the time
he gets new standing rigging, new running rigging, new sails, etc etc,
he's going to have long since spent more money than he would to get a
boat in better shape.

This is another case of "do the math."

It only makes sense to buy and old boat to fix up *if* you have the
skills and can do some scrounging.


... Since I've never re-furbished an old boat myself, I'm going to
have to give him a wakeup call.

Well, you could have fun doing it, and it's somebody else's nickel!

... Luckly, there's another friend of his
who John will listen to.
In the meantime, anyone familiar with the Cal 34?

Yep. Sailed one around quite a bit back in the mid 1970s. This one had
been somewhat tricked out for racing. They are good sailing boats,
although they have a few built-in problems... IIRC the steering on this
one tended to flake out. The owner used to loudly wish he'd gottten a
tiller.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King