On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:02:48 GMT, "Thomas Wentworth"
wrote:


By far ;;; one of the absolute best postings I have ever read on the net!
You hit a home run!

And, you are sooo right! I am still working on the details of the "getting
the boat" so I will post when I am at that point.

I will ask about the bilge, the bilge pump, the cleanliness, the
turnbuckles, the chain plates [ as a former owner of an old sailboat ..
this is very important ]. In fact, I will use a copy of this posting as a
guide!

Thanks for the input.

Tom

Glad to help. I am currently shopping for what I hope will be a world
cruiser, so I am constantly thinking of this stuff. It's amazing the
number of people who've let good boats go to crap...and I'm not
talking about the varnish, but about the systems, amateur
installations, forgotten maintenance, etc.

I am seriously thinking my best course would be to find a
part-finished hull and to do it to my spec (not myself..it would never
get finished), or to find an old guy with obsessive-compulsive traits
and a nice, well-maintained vessel, and to make him an offer.

A Pearson 33 should clean up nicely, though, and it's a capable
coastal cruiser that could repay much of your repair/fix-up investment
in many happy hours at sea. Good luck.

(The A4 freshwater comments are right on. Go to the Great Lakes to
find perfectly good raw water cooled A4s "retired" by diesel lovers
who really wanted a bigger alternator...a couple of acid flushes and a
few bits and pieces and they will "drop it" at 20% of the Westerbeke
price.)

R.