Buying my first boat

After getting married I started to look at sailboats that were for sail. I was never really looking to buy one, more of entertaining some happy fantasy. However as I fear happens all to often these fantasies started turning into actual searches for a boat to buy. I was a few years out of school and looking for a new hobby to distract me from the daily grind of work. I was convinced however not to just buy the first boat that looked reasonable, it was to be a big investment and I wanted it to be right.

At first I really liked the lines and great reputation of Cal 25 and Cal 27 sailboats. My research told me that they were very well built and reliable boats with few inherent problems. A few Cal 25's were for sale in the area but I never quite had the money to buy one... on to more fantasy of owning a sailboat. As a few years passed I was starting to give up on the idea of owning a sailboat until one bored afternoon at work.

It was the awkward week between Christmas and New Years and work was slow. I was stuck on a job-site since my superintendent was off for the holiday. I resorted to searching for my favorite things online: sailboats. My go to was http://www.sailboatlistings.com/ to find boats in the area that were for sale. Most importantly boats that had been donated were shown so there were typically some good deals to be found. On that day there was nothing new or interesting so I gave ebay a shot not really expecting to find anything but hey it would kill a few minutes of this long boring day. I ended up coming across an auction that was ending in only a few hours... a 1971 Tartan 27 for sale in Bloomington, IN. It seemed almost too perfect.

I did some quick research and found out that these boats were generally very well built and reliable. In fact as the first fiberglass boats to be made by Tartan they were rather overbuilt and very sturdy boats. I emailed the seller a few basic questions and got immediate responses about the good condition of the boat; no soft spots, engine ran, good sails and sailed last summer. Best of all the boat was on a trailer. Now was the hard part, convincing my wife to let me blow most of my Christmas bonus on a giant toy. She consented and I placed a bid for what I felt would be a complete steal... $3000. For a 27 boat and trailer the seller would be nuts to accept the bid. As it turns out he was nuts, I won and got the boat for a song.