ReefTheMain
New Member
Hello Ericson owners!
I am an aspiring cruiser (I have my ASA certifications up through 106 and have skippered several charter boats up to 50') and was planning on heading down to Florida to buy a sailboat and begin living in the Caribbean for a few years. I have more than enough money saved up for the boat and am just planning on working through October 2017 to build up more for my cruising coffers.
As I'm a photographer, videographer, and software engineer, I'll be living (mostly solo, with occasional friends visiting) on my boat full time living fairly cheaply and doing a lot of computer work, so I need something I can single-hand and something that will keep me fed with electricity (using as little diesel as possible).
I regularly look at listings for boats in my planned price range ($25-35k) just to keep an eye on what I should be expecting when I finally leave Seattle, and just today I ran across a 1982 Ericson 36 RH down in Florida with an asking price of $25,000. It has a ridiculous amount of new equipment on it that was installed over the past two years. The two owners are my age (early 30s) and ex-military who'd bought the boat a year ago expecting to cruise the Caribbean until one of them got a dream job, so the boat is up for sale. It seems to be (both from the pictures and discussing it with the broker) in really good condition, with the main caveat to that being that the interior is not a nice teak interior, but instead has lots of plywood as it's the stuff the two owners installed so they could get up and running. Frankly I don't mind that too much, as long as it is functional and not gross it'll be fine with me.
If I did buy a boat now, I'd just stick it on the hard for the next year rather than shorting my cruising coffers.
So, on to my questions:
1. This is clearly a ridiculously good deal, meant to be a quick sale. How good of a deal is it? Of course I'd get it fully surveyed before buying.
2. What are the issues to look out for?
3. How is the Ericson 36 RH's motion at anchor?
4. How is its motion at sea?
5. Is the Ericson 36 RH a good liveaboard in general? What should I be aware of in terms of comfort and living on it?
6. The boat currently has rod rigging, which I would likely want to replace even after an inspection (as the broker does not know when it was last replaced). Would it be worth it to switch over to synthetic rigging, or stick with rod?
Thank you!
I am an aspiring cruiser (I have my ASA certifications up through 106 and have skippered several charter boats up to 50') and was planning on heading down to Florida to buy a sailboat and begin living in the Caribbean for a few years. I have more than enough money saved up for the boat and am just planning on working through October 2017 to build up more for my cruising coffers.
As I'm a photographer, videographer, and software engineer, I'll be living (mostly solo, with occasional friends visiting) on my boat full time living fairly cheaply and doing a lot of computer work, so I need something I can single-hand and something that will keep me fed with electricity (using as little diesel as possible).
I regularly look at listings for boats in my planned price range ($25-35k) just to keep an eye on what I should be expecting when I finally leave Seattle, and just today I ran across a 1982 Ericson 36 RH down in Florida with an asking price of $25,000. It has a ridiculous amount of new equipment on it that was installed over the past two years. The two owners are my age (early 30s) and ex-military who'd bought the boat a year ago expecting to cruise the Caribbean until one of them got a dream job, so the boat is up for sale. It seems to be (both from the pictures and discussing it with the broker) in really good condition, with the main caveat to that being that the interior is not a nice teak interior, but instead has lots of plywood as it's the stuff the two owners installed so they could get up and running. Frankly I don't mind that too much, as long as it is functional and not gross it'll be fine with me.
If I did buy a boat now, I'd just stick it on the hard for the next year rather than shorting my cruising coffers.
So, on to my questions:
1. This is clearly a ridiculously good deal, meant to be a quick sale. How good of a deal is it? Of course I'd get it fully surveyed before buying.
2. What are the issues to look out for?
3. How is the Ericson 36 RH's motion at anchor?
4. How is its motion at sea?
5. Is the Ericson 36 RH a good liveaboard in general? What should I be aware of in terms of comfort and living on it?
6. The boat currently has rod rigging, which I would likely want to replace even after an inspection (as the broker does not know when it was last replaced). Would it be worth it to switch over to synthetic rigging, or stick with rod?
Thank you!