looks like Dura Mater, only not as (ahem) hefty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNUQwoX6Ydg
The deal with Joan was that the boat had to live on a trailer to save $$. HAD to. Well, that means <5K pounds, and under 4K would be nice, 'cause there are several 2 ton hoists in the Bay Area. So I watched CL for about 6-7 weeks looking for a Merit 25 or maybe a Capri 25 to come up for sale. I missed out on a Merit 25 in Los Angeles. I considered one of my favorite "niche" boats...a Ranger 24, but the only ones for sale were in San Diego and Portland. That's an awful long way to haul a boat and they weigh in at about 4K and their PHRF rating is about 217.. I can't afford the $10K + that it costs to buy an Olson 25 or a Moore 24. I really wanted a boat with a PHRF rating <200, though I'm partial to the old Excalibur 26's, for emotional and personal history reasons, which rate about 214. I'd have taken the Ranger 24, too if there'd been one for sale. I dallied with rescuing a trashed Sprinta Sport out of the Coyote Point Marina, but when the harbormaster cut up the rig and threw it in the dumpster....but kept the boat in a slip to make the marina look more full, I abandoned that idea.
Anyway, I wanted a boat where I could see a lot of the glass work and the bulkhead tabbing. After dealing with mystery leaks in my Santana 3030, which has a full hull liner, though not a headliner, I just didn't want to deal with one if at all possible.
Put it all together and there aren't a whole lot of boats that fit the criteria, and nothing was coming up for sale within 300 miles. Finally this S-2 7.9 appeared in Monterey. I knew nothing about the boat, but I recall that a lot of Midwest sailors on Pressure Drop and SA had good things to say about them. So I started browsing around and everything I read sounded pretty good. I know, myself, that on long races I am simply not aggressive enough to get full performance out of an ultralight. Also, I'm approaching 60 years old and it's time to gt a boat that's a little bit kinder on my problematic knee. And finally, while I've hoist-launched keelboats tons of times, it's never a happy-making event for me. Ditto for hauling a fixed-keel boat on a trailer on the open road. Having a boat with a daggerboard sounds much better.
Well the 7.9 has a hull liner, but it doesn't go higher than the berths, so there's that. So I went and looked at it. The thing is BUILT. The indoor-outdoor carpet liner has been pulled out of this boat so I can see the glass work. I'm impressed by the quaiity. The bulkhead tabbing is solid. I stomped around the deck and heard nothing. Yeah, the daggerboard trunk intrudes on the inside of the boat, but it's not *that* bad. I can deal with it. The boat had some good sails and some beater sails. Nothing terrible was wrong with it, though there's a really funky non-stainless steel stern pulpit that has to go.
I spent many hours reading through the One Design association forum and website. The previous owner trailered this boat to Mexico and spent 20 days on it with his brother and their girlfriends. Hmmmm. That says something. So all in all, it seemed like a pretty good way to go, and the price was *Very* right.
The clincher was that the Alameda Marina has a **Serious** spreader bar that will easily lift the boat on the 3-ton hoist. It's wide enough. I will have to provide my own straps but that's just $200, no biggie. See, since the boat has a daggerboard and the rest of the ballast is 'glassed into the hull, there are no keel bolts to lift from. So you lift this with straps or launch on a ramp.... straps for me.
I'm hoping to be on the water for the 3BF, we shall see!
