Survey: Your boat's previous owner ...

[foobie]

A) obviously drank absinthe in his coffee.

2) was an economic terrorist.

%) must have been escaped mental patient.

5) is all of the above

[Stu Jackson]

None of the above.

My PO was just great:  did the wiring harness upgrade, Harken batt cars on the mainsail, rigid vang, new hot water heater, microwave oven on a 1986 boat.  Only thing he didn't do was the alternator bracket replacement, so I got to do it and write the article, too!

Steve, anything in particular grabbin' ya today?

[Lance Jones]

Man, I'd hate to see the comments Steve left off of the missing Numbers and letters......

[Ken Juul]

Steve,

Sometimes trying to figure out why is harder than just fixing. 

Why did my PO put the windlass battery under the Vee berth?  + & - #4 cables to charge the battery, #4 cable back to CB mounted on electrical panel then forward to bow to feed the windlass motor and finally a short -#4 between the windlass and the battery.  I can only guess that he got a great deal on the battery cables.

[Ken Juul]

Just thought of another one.

When i purchased the boat it had 5 12V car batteries.  2 sets of 2 in parallel wired to the Bat Switch 1 & 2 positions.  The 5th was the windlass battery that was on it's own circuit controlled by both position I think.  3 batteries in the battery box, one forward of the water tank under the stbd settee.

Go figure.

[Joe and Carol]

Previous owners helped make our decision to purchase easy.  When we first had poccession and went below with cleaning materials, and this is the truth, we couldn't find anything to clean!

[foobie]

Just for fun and venting purposes... Amongst other nightmares I've been enjoying of late....

1) He cut all of the fiberglass in front of the nav station out... possibly with a jig saw, but by the looks of it, he used a handsaw <poorly>

2) He then "installed" a heinously cobbled together "wood" insert... including 3 mini-drawers made from all variety of scrounged dumpster materials (flakeboard = great in marine environment, 6 matchpacks = good for leveling drawer slides, royal finger bowl hand wipe packets = also good for leveling drawers).

3) The very "liberal" application of Cetol while obviously at sea or drunk without bothering to clean up ANY of the drips and runs in the non-skid.

I could go on, however I knew what I was buying. I will see to it that when she comes time to have a new skipper, she'll be in Bristol fashion... and/or I'll have suffered divorce court in the attempt!

I still love the Catalina 34!

p.s. - I love scrounging, but this isn't "Junkyard Wars"!

[David Comando]

Everytime I step aboard Kindred Spirit I thank the previous owner. Where do I start? The electrical and plumbing upgrades, sail inventory, galley and head upgrades, pleated curtains, auto pilot. I voted to name the Autohelm "Al" , for the PO, but I was outvoted by my family. Check out the upgrades on the Catalina website and you will see the photos that "Captain Al Watson" did on Kindred Spirit. For the past 7 years, my goal has been to keep KS in the condition that I bought her in. I did install Frigoboat refrigeration with the keel cooler and a Garmin Chart plotter GPS. There is little else that I need right now, except for the boat to be launched,  thanks to the PO.

[Ron Hill]

Steve : I've been in close contact with POs Gerry Douglas and Frank Butler.  I've been working on APACHE for the past 22 years getting it straight!!
 
Still have a laundry list of things to do yet!!  In all fairness the factory did a fairly good job.  The only original items left are the hull, boom and mast.   

[Michael Shaner]

3) The very "liberal" application of Cetol while obviously at sea or drunk without bothering to clean up ANY of the drips and runs in the nonskid.

Wait a minute Steve, that guy must have been on my boat too!! I did move her down from the northern Chesapeake...perhaps that's the way Cetol is applied up there  ??

I've got HOURS in removing Cetol from nonskid...that stuff is tenacious! Other than that, my PO was allright...(or POs were allright...)

[sail4dale]

Golly, guys  ... I have really missed out on the real fun of buying a pre-owned boat.

I bought a year and one half old boat that had hard service ..... only on the cockpit table.  The engine had only 25 hours on it.  The microwave had been used but the holding tank had not. It had a sunshade but no dodger, very nice stereo, all electronics but no autohelm, removable main hatch doors, etc etc.

In addition, the broker when asked what the seller was going to do, replied that they wanted a smaller boat.  I offer my 18 year old Cat30 in trade, they accepted it at a reasonable amount toward their asking price.

This kind of boat swapping I could get used to but I love the boat so much I just want to keep it.

[Ken Heyman]

When I met my PO and the boat for the first time, I noticed that the boat had a nice bottom with no build up of old bottom paint.  The PO claimed he had just had the yard take off years of old paint down to the barrier coat.What I didn't know is that the PO had applied VC 17 over an ablative bottom paint which is a no-no. As a result, I have continued to use VC 17 but it doesn't adhere properly (lots of tiny paint bubbles but fortunately no blisters). The only other option is to sand down to the barrier (or gel coat) coat and start over --so i live with it.
I also noted (being extremely alert that day), that the boat had no rudder. I asked if the asking price included a rudder and was told that it did but it was being "repaired"  after being damaged by the boat yard at haul out and would be as good as new. This was unacceptable so i did get a brand new elliptical rudder as part of the package. I also suffered the frustration of trying to get Cetol off where it doesn't belong---nearly impossible!. All said though, the boat has been relatively trouble free. The PO conscientiously represented the frig as not working (claiming that the price reflected that reality) but in fact it only needed a freon charge. My surveyor evidently didn't look at the debris in the Racor bowl and after learning the hard way I cleaned my fuel tank per the Ron Hill method and all has been well. In all fairness, he did disclose fully and notwithstanding the bottom paint and dirty tank issue, I was made aware of and accepted any shortcomings.