Beautiful old boats rotting in Maldon

[SlimRick]

I was in Dublin earlier this week - there's a few sad sights around there too. I'm surprised this old pilot boat is still floating, and the yacht next to it was subject to a drugs related petrol bomb attack, despite its current state it has been sold on a couple of times since then, most recently to someone who wanted to use it to host an advertising billboard....good luck with that one!

 

[Liz_I]

Here in P.Napoleon there are quite a few old wooden boats, some abandoned projects - some just abandoned.
There is one truism 'Sometimes even free is too expensive'

 

[Farrelley]

In the corner of a local boatyard was a little bilge keeler. Not a 'classic' wooden boat, but early 1970 fibreglass. She was green with algae and her mast was a roosting point for birds so her deck was inches deep in 'fertiliser'..
I went cruising and on my return to a berth in the yard 17 months later she was still there, slowly dying. I later found out she had stood for a few years.
I managed to find an owner and made a very modest offer. Buckets of water, bleach, and a basic (very basic) rewiring job, a few evenings reeving new running rigging and the little Sun Ray 21 lives again, hull and decks as sound as the day she first floated 40 years ago. I'm going creek crawling this summer..

Looks a lovely boat now, soo clean.. nice find.. Maybe I will find something similar

I will keep looking.

Neil

 

[dylanwinter]

that is so true

Here in P.Napoleon there are quite a few old wooden boats, some abandoned projects - some just abandoned.
There is one truism 'Sometimes even free is too expensive'

that is correct

some boats are just not worth saving

they still make me sad though

they are shells for so many memories

Dylan

 

[onesea]

that is correct

some boats are just not worth saving

they still make me sad though

they are shells for so many memories

Dylan

I can think of one such wooden boat, my partner comment she always thought it pretty and she can remember it being there from a kid...

Derelict boats always make me sad, I have to remind myself I cannot afford to rejuvenate 1 never mind them all.

One reason why when I sell a boat I do not want to meet the new owner, then I can always imagine they have gone to a better home...

 

[ffiill]

Problem is you get the boat-give it the TLC-then you meet someone ;you have children; you get middle aged and buy a new boat and never get around to selling the old boat.
You want to get for it what you think its worth and by the time you give this up as a bad job its stood there looking forlorn with the paint peeling.
Yes I have been there and I am guilty.
When I have been trying to sell my old wooden boat I even received encouraging e mails from people who remembered it in better times of my ownership which of course stops me giving it away..