On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 16:50:23 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
I spied a late sixties '68 GB42 (don't know the exact year) this
morning when I was down south. Chatting with the yard owner, it
apparently has been retrofitted with relatively new Yanmar diesels -
180 hp each. He didn't know the hours, but it's probably somewhere
around 500 hours on both engines. I'm going down tomorrow morning with
the broker to look at it.

I know this sounds like heresy for a small boat, outboard guy, but I
really liked the look of the boat - for some reason, it looks
"different" than the usual GB - the boat just appealed to me.

Anyway...

Is there anything I should look for when prowling the boat tomorrow?
Anything peculiar to GBs? What should I expect for fuel mileage in
terms of gph?

Any advice would be appreciated.

They don't call them "classics" for nothing. :-)

A 1968 GB is likely to be a woody. If so, it might be a great boat
but I'd be inclined to look for something a bit newer and with a
fiberglass hull of course.

The 180 Yanmars are good engines but overkill on a 42. At 1/2 power
they would burn about 4 gph each and give you a cruising speed close
to 9 kts. At hull speed around 7 to 7 1/2 kts, I'd expect something
like 3 or 4 gph total. If the 180s are turbos, you will need to
cruise them at 70 to 80% of WOT to avoid carbon build up.

The weak links on older GBs are the iron fuel tanks, the AC/DC wiring,
window frames, and the high maintenance teak trim.