Cavi
Member
Well, yesterday was the big day. A couple of weeks ago I found a sunfish on Craigslist, but it was 3 and a half hours away, so I traded texts and agreed on a fair price if he were to hold it for me and sent him a deposit in order for him to hold it. Well yesterday i loaded up the family as we were to make a day of it and visit my great Aunt on the way over and my wife's aunt on the way back. We arrived and i could not believe the state of the hull. In the pictures it looked clean and good, the owner stated that it was a 8 out of 10. i would classify it as a 2 out of 10. first off it was an early 70s boat not an 80s boat as stated.. Second, there was white contact paper in many areas covering who knows what. In three spots there was some white puddy covering a break in the hull. This puddy was soft like pyaydooh, who knows what it was. The drain was the old metal one and it was corroded and looked like there was no hopes of it every working. Then the worst of all. The plate where the rudder mounts was gone and replaced with a piece of wood, the piece of wood stuck down below the hull about 4 inches. The owner proudly stated that it had been converted to run a laser rudder. When I tried to explain that a flat block of wood that was 10 inches wide sticking 4 inches below the hull would not work as it would cause major drag he could not understand this or tried to apear he did not get it. Not to mention that the block of wood was melanine, and would probably last one trip!! End result i walked away and lost my deposit as he would not return it.
All was not lost as I had seen another sunfish on Ebay after I had sent the deposit on this one. It had not sold and was not close, but it was about 1 hour out of the way on the way home. I quickly e-mailed him and he had not sold it so I got a price and decided to go see it. Got there and it looked pretty good, and the price was right so I strapped it to the roof and headed home. End result 535 miles in one day to get a sunfish. The new boat looks good, but there are a couple of issues. One, he did not have paperwork, it has been in his family for years but never registered. Second it does take on some water through the mast pocket (how do I fix that?) last, the rudder and daggerboard look home made (I have a new plastic daggerboard already) I will post pictures after with questions about the rudder.
All was not lost as I had seen another sunfish on Ebay after I had sent the deposit on this one. It had not sold and was not close, but it was about 1 hour out of the way on the way home. I quickly e-mailed him and he had not sold it so I got a price and decided to go see it. Got there and it looked pretty good, and the price was right so I strapped it to the roof and headed home. End result 535 miles in one day to get a sunfish. The new boat looks good, but there are a couple of issues. One, he did not have paperwork, it has been in his family for years but never registered. Second it does take on some water through the mast pocket (how do I fix that?) last, the rudder and daggerboard look home made (I have a new plastic daggerboard already) I will post pictures after with questions about the rudder.
