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Considering a 35-3

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
That sounds like a great deal to me. The bottom line--or at least one bottom line--is what you could sell the restoration for.

Down here that might be $40-$50K. We are not money grubbers any of us, but value exists and sustains.
 

alozon

Junior Member
That sounds like a great deal to me. The bottom line--or at least one bottom line--is what you could sell the restoration for.

Down here that might be $40-$50K. We are not money grubbers any of us, but value exists and sustains.

Thanks for the engagement, Christian. I am just curious what sounds like a great deal to you? The posted boat for $34k or the boat Trickdhat scooped up for $12.5k? If the latter, what would you consider a good deal for the one I'm going to look at?
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
It is rare, I think, to find a pretty good specimen of a late-model 35 for 13K. Hence, a good deal. Such a deal proves that boats are hard to sell, esp. if they need some work. We should all be so lucky.

A person in the market for a sailboat is in the market briefly. He buys in a "window" of maybe three months looking. Or maybe a year's looking, for the patient and abnormal. I once told a yachting magazine editor that all his articles were the same, nothing was new, you could pick up an issue ten years prior and read the same stuff in the current issue. He laughed and cited the "window". Advertisers, he said, relied on the window. They knew that people struck with boat fever bought magazines, studied the ads for a brief period, then chose a boat. The advertisers wanted stories to serve readers in the throes of choice to support their ads giving immediate satisfaction and scratching of the itch.

It was all about new boat sales. Showroom models financed by banks. $250K for a Hunter 45 , sign here, join the lifestyle.

"Used" boats are outside the economic model. Banks don't finance 30-year-old boats, it's a cash deal. The only guy who makes money is the broker, who takes 10 percent or some minimum like $3K. They survive by a balance of well informed people like us, who estimate repair and maintenance costs and know what they're getting into. And by impulse-buyer innocents who notice that a new Beneteau 51 is $700K, and feel that a 1976 Taiwan 55-footer for 90K is much more boat for the money. (it is actually much more money for the boat).

So, in our backwater of hands-on yacht ownership, bargains are pretty specific. We are actually boat restorers, and so we look for specimens of good provenance worthy of the long restoration haul. The prices of the specimens varies wildly. The price seems based on a seller window, not a buyer window. Owners are fed up, dying, in over their head, divorcing, behind in slip fees, or moved to Kansas City. If you can;t sell a boat you drop the price, drop, drop , drop. Meantime, the boat weathers. Soon no broker will touch it and Craigslist is the only means of sale.

So I think Trickd got a good deal, and I think this boat might be a good deal.

It really doesn't matter, 15K or 30K purchase price. Whatever you pay to buy, the real cost is ongoing expense and commitment of time -- time at the expense of everything else in your life and family.
 

Kevin A Wright

Member III
The one problem systemic to the E35-3 is leaking from the dorade box in front of the mast. The small drain plugs in the box crud up then rainwater comes into the headliner amidships and causes havoc with the interior veneers in the head and near the forward bulkhead. It's not leaking into the deck core, just straight to the interior of the boat.

The other is the hasp on the anchor locker which was drilled into the deck core and does cause soft decks.

Other than that they are fine boats and roomy for cruising with good handling characteristics for a boat that size.

Kevin Wright
E35 - 3 Hydro Therapy
 
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