Catching up

I don't post here very often, most of the stuff ends up on The Retirement Project. But Kintala has turned into a maintenance boat, so this would be a good place for the more wrench-orientated ramblings.

Kintala is tied at the dock without a V-drive. It suffered a catastrophic failure and took the transmission with it. Fixing that is going to required a new V-drive, new tranny, new coupling (yet to be defined) new damper plate, 6 new engine mounts (4 under the engine, 2 under the V-drive mounts) and a TON of work.

All 4 main hatches came out of the boat to be powder coated. Epic fail. The cast aluminum parts out-gassed while in the oven, ruining the finish. As a result they will need to be stripped down (again) and painted rather than powder coated. A $500 mistake. I loves me some powder coating, but find a very reputable shop to do cast aluminum parts. We do have new Plexiglas to install in the frames when they come back. After 30 years the old glass was crazed and I was concerned that it was getting pretty brittle. We putting smoked glass back in and I am expecting all of the hassle with the hatches to be worth it...eventually.

Bedding the new hatches in place was something that was probably going to be needed anyway. Kintala leaks like a screen door. Not only were all of the hatches leaking, there is a leak around the companionway (that I haven't found yet), evidence of a leak under one of the handrails (that I haven't found yet), and at least 2 of the 12 portholes are leaking as well. I learned on Nomad that one should only re-bed an item that is already leaking, so that is the approach I am taking on Kintala. If it doesn't leak, don't fix it.

Kintala is a 30 year old boat; all of the running rigging has been or will be replaced before we take to big water.  The stuff that was on the boat was down right dangerous in spite of what both the surveyor and rigging inspector suggested.

Surveyors, rigging inspectors, and mechanical inspections are, in my humble opinion, a complete waste of money.  Insurance companies usually require a survey, so get a cheap one to keep them happy than inspect, poke, prod and examine everything yourself. Open every panel, look in every hole, take lots of high quality pictures to show experts and ask questions. Don't take any one's word on the shape of the boat...their lives will not depend on it and all they want is their money. If you don't think you know enough about mechanical things to find the bad stuff, at the very least follow the surveyor's every move, question everything that doesn't look perfect to you that he says is okay, and find a boat-knowledgeable friend to take along. Also, if it has been more than 10 years since the engine mounts have been changed, figure that the will have to be replaced sooner rather than later.  Get a sample of fluid from every mechanical thing on board; engine, tranny, v-drive, anything that has oil in it, send them to the lab and have them tested. Don't care about the cost, don't care about the time it takes, just do it. If any of the big items come back questionable, WALK AWAY or plan on spending thousands and thousands of dollars to get it fixed. Better yet WALK AWAY.

Logistics and costs made it nearly impossible to do a sea trial on Kintala. I'm not sure what I could have done to fix that, but I would never, ever, consider buying a boat again without a extensive test sail - in the ugliest weather I could talk the buyer into. Take the surveyor along if you can. He will probably prove useless but you might have the fun of watching him puke. Having said that, none of the truly massive problems that turned up on Kintala would have shown up on a sea trial.

Flip every switch, turn on every light, run every pump, run water out of every sink, find out if the water heater works, light the stove, spin the wenches, pull on the halyards, spin the helm, test the autohelm, use the head. If it doesn't work have it fixed before you take delivery of the boat or get an enormous amount of money taken off the asking price. If you don't know how much to take off, get an estimate for fixing each item, double it, total it up, add 10%...there you go. If the buyer flinches WALK AWAY. There will be a better boat along in a week or so.

Anything that stinks, find out why.

Go into any boat purchase with the attitude that you are looking for a good reason to WALK AWAY. If one doesn't present itself then, and only then, allow yourself to be persuaded into buying the boat...maybe. If the broker strikes you as anything less than an upright, professional individual completely dedicated to getting you a good boat at a fair price RUN AWAY, don't walk.