Dufour 29

[tome]

I've just been down to look at one for a friend who's a potential buyer. It all looked ok until I started poking about in the lockers. There's an inner lining with more holes in it (mostly redundant gear that's been removed) than a string vest. If water gets into the cockpit lockers it has an unimpeded passage through the boat. Some of the holes were obviously ducting and are large!

The ss fuel tank was sitting on a half bulkhead which wasn't attached to the hull, and there was a hole in the lining below the cockpit on which the calorifier was resting.

Anyone any experience of these boats? Don't want to be a scaremonger but I advised him to walk away at an asking price of 18k.

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[Rowana]

No experience of this particular boat. However, if you see things that make you uneasy as you describe, then I think you are absolutely right advising your friend to walk away. There's an awful lot of boats out there looking for new owners, so I suggest he keeps on looking.

I've been looking for about 2 years now myself, but still haven't comitted to anything. On another thread, the advice was to buy something from someone who obviously lavished much care, attention & love on his boat. I can't say I disagree with that, and in fact I am hoping to go and look at a yacht quite soon that was not on my original list of "Possibilities", purely for this reason.

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[Twister_Ken]

Cockpit lockers often (usually?) drain down to the bilges, so no problem there.

As to the calorifier and fuel tank, they sound iffy as described, but without seeing exactly how things are arranged it's difficult to comment further

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[snooks]

Bilge

And what a bilge it is!

Things to think about with the Dufour 29:

Great sailing boat, really nice underwater profile, Encapsulated Keel, Deep Bilges like over a foot! Offset prop, makes reversing fun. More stowage than you could wave a big stick at. Inner mouldings make it easy to keep clean. You'll need extended length through hull transducers, the hull is thick...correction VERY thick, also check the sea cocks if they are the old bronze conical type, make sure they work, sloping decks are good on the windward side, and a bit of a mare on the leeward side.

Old boats now, get the rig and engines checked out

My father had one, his friend liked it so much he bought one himself to bog off round the world singlehanded...He's loitering in Cyprus at the mo, after loosing the mast on the way to Turkey

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[tome]

Re: Bilge

Thanks to all, some useful stuff as always

I'll print the thread and give it to Kevin. He's still quite keen on the boat having re-appraised the offer price in light of findings and comments.

Regards
Tom

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