Buying + refurbishing a run down boat

Don't do it! Find something easier and more rewarding like trekking to the South Pole, rowing the Pacific single handed, training to be a brain surgeon or collecting the trolleys in the supermarket car park! (should that be trollies?) If you do decide to go ahead, don't do it in Britain, it rains all the time!
 
I can point you towards a 40' steel ketch. Hull and rig looks good and the boat has been abandoned ashore next to our yard for about 5 years. My guess is 5000 would be barely enough to get her afloat!

I refitted the interior of my AWB and its taken about 4 years and a fair amount of money, it can be done. If you are really good at carpentry you may be able to find enough work to live and make some ready cash for your own project in Greece but there are challenges beyond just finding work, the locals are currently very resistant to people 'horning in' on their territory for a start.

If you budgeted more like 25k I'd think you had a good chance of getting a liveable 40' boat project finished.

Btw the more permanent a liveabord you are, the les sailing you tend o do!

In the med on your own boat you only 'need' an ICC ticket ( if you know which is the sharp end and can 'drive' the boat you are a shoe in!) and 3rd party insurance ( about £125 per year )

What happened to the boat ( pandora ) abandoned aground in Nidri guys? Might be an ideal project before it deteriorates?
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=340996
 
First what ever you get, don't strip it out completely (it will be more difficult for the person who gets the boat after you to put it back together)
Especially if you want to camp on it for a couple of years, you need at least a level of comfort.

I bought my 27 footer for 1000 beer token on EBay.

Fibreglass is easiest to repair, followed by wood, steel and ferro in that order.

Forget ply composites if they are rotten and ferro if it has rust dribbles down the side.

Forget surveys at this value, just take a friend who knows the construction of the boat. Wooden boats on the hard for years are also a no no, as the chances are they are hogged and thus a half million pound rebuild.
 
lefkasman said:
She is still there settling quite nicely now, not sure that its abandoned though, love reading this guy Pond Weeds stuff, would like some of whatever it is he is drinking or smoking :rolleyes:
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I will admit i do occasionaly dabble in the herbal greenery. I love learning and in my personal experience the best way to do this, is to repeatedly observe something from different perspectives.

this can be done by asking different peoples opinions on a matter, or traveling, to observe different cultural perspectives on a matter.
and occasionally, a little smoke, to observe a different personal perspective on the matter.

I believe in the whole "everything in moderation" concept. rarely do i get myself "spando ballay'd" :eek:


over the last few days. in reading all your responses, I have been thinking a great deal about marine carpentry.
-i love boats
-i love carpentry
-from what i have seen of the sailing community, i would be very keen to work in such world where everyone is so willing to help out. a lot of kindness.


my current skill sets are more in the area of furniture. I spent a few months teaching it in Uganda, where I learnt a great deal about tacking problems from different angles/perspectives.


eg:
opposite to where i was staying, a 20 story hotel was being constructed. over the months i observed its completion, and one day, sitting on the porch, i noticed all the workers gathered round in a huddle. after a short wile i noticed they were drawing short straws.
the unlucky worker reluctantly walked over to the base of the scaffolding, firmly grabbed the base of one of the bamboo poles, yanked it out of place and ran for dear life as 20 stories of bambo scaffolding came crashing down.
Job done :D


anywhoos. interiors i could definatly get stuck into, but in regard to other areas such as plumbing, electrics, decking, etc
where might i go about learning some of this on the cheap?

Toad mentioned flotilla company. they may be worth a look.
 
pond weed said:
...but in regard to other areas such as plumbing, electrics, decking, etc
where might i go about learning some of this on the cheap?...
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This is a good book, covers all areas. You can learn sailing & boat maintenance by doing, e.g. RYA courses, e.g diesel engine maintenance, day skipper practical to get your ICC, but these are relatively expensive - a lot of knowledge & skills are acquired by just learning the systems of & working on your own boat &/or crewing for others. Wherever you are you'll find others who have skills you don't, who you can help out with the skills you already have...
 
pond weed said:
oh, and ill be in cronwall, polzeath around april. near rock/padstow. does anyone know if i might be able to get any carpentry work around there?

even unpaid, i would be keen to start working with boats in any way.
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Change of plan. In earlier post you were about to hitchhike to Greece with your Jack Russell.

You will never achieve anything if you keep on changing your mind.
 
Tranona said:
Change of plan. In earlier post you were about to hitchhike to Greece with your Jack Russell.

You will never achieve anything if you keep on changing your mind.
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i leave for greece in a week. will be back around mid april.

put simply i want to escape south for a while.

last december i hitched to barcelona. spent a month sleeping in the park and busking the terraces.
some very wierd and wonderful street folk there :)
 
never did spot that. though i did make very good friends with an englishman, welshman and an american. every night we would meet up and go wondring through the alley-ways, encountering all sorts of weird people and situations.

upon finding ourselves in these situations, we would all find ourselves pondering at the same time

"this has got to be how most jokes were formulated"
 
pond weed said:
never did spot that. though i did make very good friends with an englishman, welshman and an american. every night we would meet up and go wondring through the alley-ways, encountering all sorts of weird people and situations.

upon finding ourselves in these situations, we would all find ourselves pondering at the same time

"this has got to be how most jokes were formulated"
Click to expand...

Barcelona would be a good place for you to find work on some superyacht,problem could be the dog .
 
Just a couple of (perhaps unorthodox) suggestions to ponder, as you seem keen on all viewpoints.

How about just getting a fairly ordinary, slightly run down perhaps, small fibreglass sailing boat in Britain to start off with - to basically see if the life is suited to you?
A pal of mine lived on a 24' Snapdragon for 4 years quite happily, and Nathan W who posts on here lived on a 21' Corribee for much longer (and a 24' Snapdragon probably has 50% more internal room than a Corribee!).
You could acquire one for around a few thousand, and still live on it while doing cosmetic refurbishment. If it needs anything major doing, run away.

And you could work on other people's boats, doing outfitting and carpentry, gaining experience along the way to stand you in good stead later on for your bigger boat.
The only difference between house furniture and boat furniture basically is that everything is 90 degrees in a house, whereas most aspects of a boat have curves to take into consideration (yes, this is a simplified comparison).

Take note that as boat size increases, the cost of doing anything to it does not go up linearly with length - rather, it usually seems to obey a cubic law (ie pretty much exponential). So the cost of refurbishing a 30' boat compared to a 20' boat would not be 50% more, rather it would probably be more like 250% more.

An alternative suggestion which might be completely against your whole ethos (but I will suggest it anyway) - with your enthusiasm, outlook and experience of life and the world, not to mention ability to entertain, you could consider getting into the crewing field on 'big' yachts.
You would need to do an STCW course which usually takes 5 days and covers safety, lifesaving, et al but it would be monies well spent. If you look like a generally stereotypical person (on the outside at least) it should not be difficult to get a job as a deck hand on a big yacht if you have STCW (and ideally RYA Competent Crew as well perhaps) and a keen outlook with obvious practical ability.

They pay funny money on these boats - and it is all beer money effectively, as everything is all found on board. So a good opportunity to save a significant amount of money quickly, even if it does mean that you temporarily prostitute yourself to a cause that was never part of your original objective.

Whichever route you decide to follow, out of all the examples illustrated above (and more will no doubt follow), go with an open mind and a basic expectation, never say 'never' to anything, play some irie tunes along the way and see where you end up - good luck! :)
 
One thing that no-one has mentioned is that a lot of the internal woodwork of a boat is structural, especially bulkheads. So if you literally mean what you say about ripping everything out and starting again, you need to bear in mind that you'll have to replace some bits pretty much as is. That may be necessary, if the existing wood is in bad condition, but to be avoided if it isn't.

You also need to avoid vastly changing the weight and balance of the boat - but that's unlikely, unless you install vast battery banks or water-tanks.

Bigger boats probably have more lee-way in this regard than smaller ones.

I may well be teaching granny to suck eggs, but no-one else seems to have mentioned it.
 
I used to work on boats and had reasonable knowledge of repair and maintenance for wood and fibreglass yachts, plus their systems.

When I returned to a life ashore, I assumed therefore that it would be easy enough to buy a project boat on the cheap and 'do it up' in my spare time. I was about 25 at this stage.

HOWEVER

I made the mistake of assuming that a project boat has some intrinsic value. In actual fact, most project boats have a negative value - they cost a surprising amount of money just sitting there, rotting away. The bigger the boat, the deeper the negative value. I also massively underestimated the cost of fitting out. Anything 'marine' is expensive and if you are planning on ripping everything out and starting again you will spend tens of thousands to get anywhere near seaworthy - chances are you will still end up with a very old boat with a very old engine, albeit with newish fittings.

In hindsight I should have paid a bit more for a boat ready to sail, as it happened I spent 3 years chucking money down the drain and all my spare time in a yard.

If I were you I'd save up some cash - perhaps as motoryacht deck crew as others have suggested, and buy something a) plastic b) between 26 and 32ft c) in good condition

In less than a year you could have a well equipped seaworthy yacht.
 
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