By: R. Brintnall

THE ADVANTAGES OF OWNING A BATTERED OLD BOAT: A B.O.B.

In 2007 Good Old Boat published an article about the Catalina 30’s turning 30, now my old girl is in her 40’s and still going strong. But I have to admit she’s showing her age. The number of gelcoat cracks grows, as do the lengths of the old ones.

We try to keep up with it, but the season is short in the North, and repair/maintenance time has to be prioritized. There’s little time to fill a chip when the transmission needs adjusting, a leaking window is less important than a leaking rudder strut, and below the water line crack repair outweighs cosmetic gelcoat cracks in the cockpit. Plus, we love to sail. A day nice enough to paint or apply gelcoat is nice enough to sail, and that’s almost always our first priority.

We fantasize about the retirement re-fit, how we’ll strip her down, fill and repair all the cracks, give her a shiny coat of Interlux, sand and oil all the teak, pull every window and re-set it, but that’s still a few years off.

So in the mean time we cruise as much as we can on our battered old boat, feeling a little sheepish sometimes when we’re docked between newer vessels that gleam in the sun like wet crystal, with canvas free of patches or stretched seems, where all the instruments match, and work, and the life lines are a perfect string of white without a single crack or blemish.

Yet through the years we’ve found some legitimate advantages to sailing a battered old boat. They help us appreciate, and truly love, what we have. If you have a battered old boat they might help you too.

BPD

The Boat Per Dollar equation is a subjective algorithm, but it’s hard to deny the correlation of age and value. I bought my old girl at an estate auction almost 20 years ago where most people were buying furniture and garden tools. I was the only bidder on the cradled 30 foot sailboat parked on the back lawn and won her for 6k, her reserve minimum.

Of course, if your battered old boat needs a lot of work, and they all do, and you have to hire out to get it done, then you have to weigh carefully the advantages of that initial low cost. Cosmetic things can be remedied without a lot of special tools and equipment. Engine work is trickier, and engine access is an important consideration when buying an older boat. Through the years I have painfully become something of an expert on my 4 decade plus old atomic 4. However, I’ve been lucky it never needed anything too drastic and the Catalina 30s have one of the most accessible auxiliaries of any small cruising design. If I ever had to replace rings or fuel injectors in a diesel I would be over my head and have to hire out, and qualified diesel mechanics don’t work cheap.

Less Stress

No one is ever happy to see a new chip, scratch, or gouge on their boat, but if you use it, chips happen. Still, one more chip or scratch to the hundreds already there is far less stressful than a nick that breaks the plane of a pristine gelcoat glow. I see many boats in our marina with a no-shoes allowed policy on their vessels. The shoes are all lined up on the dock in a shoe holding area, some even have signs directing crew/guests of their policy, all so there is no threat of a hard particle trapped in a sole causing a blemish.

We grew up never being allowed to work the deck without shoes, bare toes could stub on a cleat or station bracket. Racers are never allowed to sail barefoot during a race. I don’t even like flip flops, a sometimes spot of contention with my wife. 

Yet I must admit, if that fantasy retirement re-fit does occur, I will feel some pain at the first scratch or nick from somebody’s shoes. Though I still think the best policy is to grin and bear it for safety’s sake. But while my boat is battered and old, no one working the deck without shoes is a no brainer family tradition. 

There’s Always Something to Do

If you don’t sort of like working on your old boat, you shouldn’t have one. Of course I’d rather sail than fix/maintain, but I’d rather work on my old boat than work at my day job. Too wet to sail, you can fix chips and wood work down below. Too rough to go out, you can check the steering cables and clean electrical connections. No one to sail with, you can reset a hand rail, paint the pedestal, etc. There is always some reason to spend quality boat time on your old girl. We keep it simple, just because you can’t fix everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do a spot here, a chip there, when you can. 

After almost two decades with this boat I’m still learning new skills. This year I’m trying to learn to match aged gelcoat as I attempt to fill a few chips in heavily faded areas. Haven’t got it down yet, there really are 50 shades of grey. But I’m improving, and my miss attempts still look better than when they were just a chip. Plus the old boat just likes it when you show her some love, who doesn’t?

Natural Selection drives Boat Selection

Not every hull that came out of a mold was created equal. My Catalina 30 is hull number 306 of the some 7000 made. To have survived and sailed regularly for over 4 decades has proven she’s a winner. The bad boats don’t grow old. If you’ve got a battered old boat that still floats and moves, you got a good one.

If you’re considering an older boat that needs some love, look for one whose needs match your skills. I’m not much on major engine work, but I’ve done lots of fiberglass work as a teenager and thru college. A seized engine would scare me, soft decks not so much. It can help to look for names that have been around, and still are. Large production boats typically have more of a following, and that following may offer lots of advice and even a venue for spare parts. Hunter, Catalina, and Beneteau are companies still producing and their older models can often be found at a value. However, it’s important to do your research, just because a company still makes money doesn’t mean every model of boat they made was a winner.

Those Looks, and Look Aways

If you have a battered old boat, you know what I’m talking about. There’s always a few people in the marina who sort of look down their nose at your less than pristine vessel. If you love your boat like we do these looks, and sometimes look aways, can sting a little. We usually try to avoid the ritzy marinas, but sometimes as we cruise we have to stop over and re-provision in places where it seems we are the only boat there more than five years old, and maybe one of the few without a 30 year mortgage. Most people are kind, we are all boaters after all, no matter what we boat on, but there are always a few that act like it’s a disgrace to sail on something that doesn’t blind you with its gleam in the sun, nick free and spotless. My advice is to grow a thick skin and don’t worry about it. Probably those folks who look away aren’t anybody you would want to interact with anyway.

Love

One fantasy we’ve let fade away on our battered old boat is replacing her. She’s big enough and sea worthy enough for who we are and where we sail, and while I have to admit a stray lustful thought as I pass some of the sleek gleaming hulls in our marina, sweat, blood, and history have cemented a bond with our B.O.B that would be very hard to put aside. How could I ever part with her after all we’ve been through? We’ve had dream passages in the sun, and horrendous ones we’d like to forget, but make up all our best sea stories. For almost two decades she’s been the core of our summer. Like a beloved old pet, or your favorite and most comfortable tattered jeans, you wouldn’t get rid of them just because they’re showing their age. Our battered old boat will probably be with us to either her end or ours, because true love is more than gelcoat deep.