About four months of scouring craigslist and about 75 dollars in bridge tolls from visiting other options, I’ve finally bought a boat. It’s a 1985 Hunter 28.5 sloop named Wind Hunter and currently docked in Redwood City marina. Its got a good running diesel engine, a roomy cabin I can stand in fully upright (actually rare in this size of boat), and some minor deferred maintenance.
I first looked at it the Tuesday before Memorial Day. The then owner and I went through all the systems, checking the electric lights, water pumps, heater, etc… along with the engine, general mechanical, rigging and sails. Everything mostly worked, with the exception of the main sail which couldn’t be raised completely and the tiller quadrant stops, which had been removed at some point in the past.
However, since it was a week night it was nearing sunset by the time I finished the inspections. The previous owner was also hesitant to take it out following an incident early in his ownership where the helm cable connecting the wheel to the quadrant had failed, leaving him with no way to steer the boat. So we made a plan to meet the following Saturday when we would have more daylight. This also gave him time to make an emergency manual tiller to steer, just in case.
Saturday came and Megan and I jetted down to Capitola to surf in the morning before our planned noon appointment. Knowing there were multiple appointments after ours, we made it on time to the marina with high hopes, and the expectation of paying full asking price due to a lot of interest.
But we quickly found out the engine wouldn’t crank, and the lights wouldn’t work, and the charger seemed to be not functioning correctly. Nothing worked. My hopes were dashed. Until, in apparent exacerbation, the owner revealed how badly he wanted to just be done with the boat by cutting the asking price by a third.
Immediately upon seeing the system wide issues with the electrical system, I suspected some of the basics: a blown main fuse, corroded battery connections, or a loose wire somewhere. So I made an offer at the new lowered price, with the confidence from having seen the systems running previously that it wouldn’t be too difficult to sort out. The deal was done.
With the 3 day holiday weekend still ahead we got right to work. Megan took charge of the cabin, sorting, organizing, and generally cleaning up what was already a pretty nice cabin. I spent the day in the starboard locker, where I quickly found a mostly dead 12V battery, and a whole lot of poorly terminated wires, but like I had hoped, all easy fixes.
By the end of the weekend and after our inaugural visit to West Marine ($600 bucks!) I had all the electrical working and was able to fire up the engine. Megan had been hard at work too; the deck shining and she had washed all of the soft goods down below. Shortly after buying it we had found a sweet grill for the boat in the aft cabin and had grilled dinner twice. And best of all, we met a bunch of people from the dock, all of whom shared advice, supplies, and offers to help learn to sail. It was a great first weekend!
During the week I returned each night, completing small projects cleaning up, sorting out the rigging, and generally getting all of the systems back up to a functional level. It was a lot of fun and the week flew by.
With the boat mostly ready to sail, we spent the night on it last Saturday, with the intention of a maiden voyage midday Sunday, before the afternoon winds got too strong. We BBQ’d again Saturday evening, and had mostly comfortable night sleeping on board. Sunday morning, we made another run to West Marine for a backup radio and some required flotation before getting ready for our first outing.
Again, the our helpful boat neighbors came out and helped us clean the bottom, pump out the holding tank, and make some final changes to rigging before we left. It was great! We motored out into the channel, shutoff the engine after getting some distance from a group of smaller boats, and were sailing! It was a blast. Megan was quick with the jib and we tacked out almost to the bay proper before turning back for the docks to avoid later trouble with the stronger winds afternoon while docking. Coming back into the marina, we even passed another boat neighbor who recognized us while heading out single handed and have us some cheers.
Overall a successful experience so far, and we’re both looking forward to a summer full of fun sailing and boat life on the bay.
Originally not included in ‘Vanished without a trace’ though it had in fact vanished. recovered 20260907
(uploads/2018/06/): IMG_3606.jpg, IMG_3610.jpg, IMG_3612.jpg, IMG_3664.jpg, IMG_0003.jpg, IMG_0004.jpg, IMG_0006.jpg, IMG_0008.jpg, IMG_0009.jpg, IMG_0012.jpg, IMG_0014.jpg, IMG_0015.jpg, IMG_8530-e1528435149263.jpg, IMG_8543-e1528435182658.jpg, IMG_8633.jpg, plus video IMG_3632.mov