We bought a sailboat!
In May 2008, we purchased our first sailboat—a 1980 Catalina 22. It was in rough shape, filled with water, and needed a lot of work, including re-coring the deck and some extensive fiberglass work.
In May 2008 we purchased our first sailboat a 1980 Catalina 22. It was in rough shape, filled with water and needed a lot of work, including re-coring the deck and some extensive fiberglass work. I thought the price was right in my eyes at $500. There was no rudder, the keel was rusting badly, and it had no outboard. We hauled it home on the trailer it came on and drained the water. I had some family over and we put the boat onto boat stands and dropped the keel onto a cart. By the end of the month I had a new baby to take care of, and no time to work on the boat.
In addition I had an expansive list of project to get the boat ready:
- New rudder
- Re-bed hardware
- Fix forward hatch
- Clean inside
- Fix table
- Fix navigation lights
- Sand down paint and repaint decks
- Re-core decks
- Fix pop-top
- Fix maststep that had torn the aluminum mast
- Replace motor mount
- Strip Keel, epoxy, and paint
- New cushions/covers
- New Standing Rigging
- New Running Rigging
- New Masthead
- Replumb cockpit drains
- Sand down and repaint bottom
- New electronics
- New boarding ladder
- Port side was smashed in and poorly fixed
- Trailer fixed
- Purchase Outboard
These were just the things I knew about. Most of the things I knew I could do, even if I wasn't confident on the specifics of how. Some of the things that really stumped me where that the mast had a tear in the aluminum foot where the bolt goes through. The port side repair that had been done previously was a terrible patch job that looking back should have kept me from buying the boat.
I purchased parts to fix the keel and mast step from Catalina Direct, and planned to start work in October after it had cooled down a bit. In late September I found a new boat that needed significantly less work. In Spring my wife and I stripped the boat of parts and took it to it's final resting place. This has actually worked out well for me, as I have spares of everything, including winches, a mast, and a keel. We hauled the boat to the dump and they pulled it off the trailer for us. (After throwing it in the air a few times)
