Is there any point repairing/restoring a poorly maintained boat?

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, cuthound said:

In my opinion it is not worth repairing an old boat, unless it has some historical value.

 

When my boat was in dry dock for blacking in 2019, it had to be unceremoniously removed to allow an old Springer, which was in their painting dock to be put in the dry dock as it was sinking.

 

Apparently the owner had bought it for £5k "as seen, no survey" and thought it was a bargain.

 

He did up the interior and then booked it in for a £5k paint job.

 

Whilst it was in the paint dock it began to sink, so my boat was removed from the dry dock and the sinking Springer was put in there for inspection.

 

It needed a new bottom and overplating up to the lowest rubbing strake, £15k's worth of steelwork repairs.

 

After some time the owner finally agreed to the work.

 

So his £5k "bargain" ended up costing him £25k plus whatever he spent on doing up the interior, and because of its type and age he could realistically sell it for £10k-£15k.

When a friend of mine's Springer started leaking they gave it away. Its floating around the system somewhere now, the name was Thumper

[Bee]

If you are buying a cheap boat you really need to buy a welder, half a ton of rods, a lot of steel and learn how to use them. That is not a clever comment, its a fact and many good (and bad) boatbuilders started out like that.