How much again

[Guest]

I found a DS II and it has not been sailed or touched for 12 years. the boat itself was covered with a tarp and is a little moldy, little faded, weathered and the running rigging is highly suspect. the trailer is in as good of shape as you can imagine after twelve years of neglect, tires a fond memory, rust here and there and there. The sails were kept in the house and look ok for peeking inside the bag.. The boat was made in 80 or 81. I was going to ask $700 with a max of $1000 since i can easily see putting 300 into the trailer and another couple hundred into the rigging along with the gasket for the centerboard, which was leaking 12 years ago. I am being too stingy with the asking price or not stingy enough. I have not inspected the sails like i would like and the boat has only seen the water and not touch in a long while. Any thoughts would be very helpful.

larry (ntrino-at-mindspring.com)

[Guest]

Larry,
I bought a '80 DS II last fall for $1000. It has a very good trailer, OK hull and sails and the lines and rigging were fine. It had a crack across the cuddy floor which I've discovered is not uncommon. I spent a lot of man hours in the garage over the winter cutting out the old, installing new plywood, fiberglassing and painting. She's ready to go now. Waiting for the weather to break around here to take it out on it's shake down cruise. I think the drought if finally over in New England.
I sunk about $300-$400 into it including new teak cuddy doors. It sounds like $700 would be a bargain and $1000 is about where I was. I think it will be more man hours and elbow grease than cash to get it back.
Good luck!

mike (mb36360711-at-aol.com)

[Guest]

thanks mike, well i looked at it yesterday, and he does has a motor for the boat(the old classic, British Seagull), and the sails are in good condition which alleved many of my worries. On the bottom at the aft end of the centerboard, there is a spot where it looks like someone hit something due to the spider lines coming from a 1/2 inch spot. All the rigging is fine except for all the ropes of course. Also the centerboard is delaminated, do to years of groundings on the beach without putting it up first. It looks and feels like a book that has gotten wet. I am afraid i would have to replace it since reglassing does not look like an option because it would definetely cut down on the clearance unless i could reglass with a C-clamp or something to keep it compressed.
The owner also said that at the end of the day there would be water in the interior of the cockpit and especially if you left it in the water overnite. his reasoning is it is coming in around the top of the centerboard. I do not know if this is possible since i could not get my hands there since the boat was on a trailer. By the way he is asking 1500, which i think is about at least 300 too much. thanks for any input.

larry (ntrino-at-mindspring.com)

[Guest]

by the way, it is a 1979

larry (ntrino-at-mindspring.com)

[Guest]

Larry, I would say that $1500 is a bit high, I paid $1400 for my 1979 DS II in 1996. Mine came with decent sails, trailer was "usable" but I later (Fall 1998) spent $400 on a new axle, springs, hubs, rims, tires. The centerboard may be cracked, but if it is a 1979, the board is actually hollow...mine cracked along the leading edge (bottom when in trunk) and I glassed over the crack with a layer of FG tape this past Winter and faired it with thicked epoxy. The board still fits fine, I did remove the board from the boat to do this work. Water in the cockpit after sailing may indicate that the cockpit bailer is leaking, it does have a plug to seal it (or did originally) but mine will let in some water, not much while sailing if I leave the plug out. The 1" rubber "stopper" type plug located on the transom, a few inches up from the bottom may be leaking, either tighten it or buy a new one ($4 +/-). Water really can't get into the cockpit through the top of the cb trunk, at least not while moored, first: the top of the cb trunk is almost 12" above the waterline, second: there is no access to the cb trunk from the cockpit. While sailing some owners do report that water seeps in through the hole in the top of the trunk where the cb "down-line" runs through, but I've never had that problem, and it would seem more likely to seep into the interior (bilge) of the boat than into the cockpit. If the CB pivot bolt is leaking into the bilge, try tightening it (takes two wrenches and nimble hands) or with the boat hauled out on the trailer, loosen the bolt and use some silicone sealant around the bolt, then tighten again (let sealant cure before fully tightening). The CB pivots on a plastic bearing that is inserted into the board and that is slightly longer than the board is thick, the bolt actually squeezes the sides of the cb trunk against this "bearing", so do not be affraid to really tighten the bolt.
My board used to get stuck if I pulled it up too far, while I had the board out of the boat I ground down the upper edges of the board slightly (rounded them off a bit), now the board goes up and down with greatest ease!

Rod Johnson, "SUNBIRD" (rjohnson24-at-juno.com)

[Guest]

I paid $800 but quickly turned it into a 2k+ investment. Teak cuddy doors, new sails, jib ready bag, sail cover, all new standing rigging and tunbuckels etc..
To share some of Rudys wisdom and reply to some past threads about rigging slackening while the boat is moored, Rudy (D&R)stated that the original 3/32 stays are way undersized and DSs are losing rigs left and right lately. He suggested a n upgrade to 1/8 rigging and new stanless big boat style turnbuckles. He even uses 1/8 on the new widgeons. The new turnbuckles finally allow me to sufficiently tighten the rig and it stays tight. $140 complete including turnbuckles, 3 stays and all conections direct from D&R....excact length......no guessing.
Next I lead my sheets to Harken swivel ratchet fittings mounted on my CB trunk. Rudy said the trunk is 3/8 thick on top and will accept tapped holes but I had a freind make up a stainless steel saddle to go over the trunk and the holes for the fittings are drilled into the top of it and backed with nuts. The jib controls are now right at my fingertips and easily adjusted an inch or two under full load. I removed the clevis pin holding the jam cleat thingys on the combing that was bending under load and relaced it with 3/8 harken dinghy blocks at $20 each. Way smooth. I was real happy with my DS at $800 but then the boat grew on me and I wanted to get it perfect. The original cost isnt the big thing....its the final cost. A perfect DS is worth 2-3 k......... to me so the important thing is to have a sound starting point.

harris (hg-at-myhost.com)

[Guest]

Larry,
I have this rule of thumb that used outboard motors are worth about $100/HP. I never heard of a British seagull, but if it runs well it would be fair to deduct the value of the motor from the boat. If that's the case, you're talking around $1200 for the boat alone. That's better than $1500.
Let us know how you make out. (with the boat I mean)

Mike

mike (mb36360711-at-aol.com)

[Guest]

The British Seagull outboards were the greatest utility outboards ever made. They were designed to push heavy displacement hulls, and sailboats. We had a 4.5 HP "Silver Century" model on our 21' sailboat for the first 11 seasons that we owned her. The Seagulls came in various sizes, from 1.5 hp upto 8 hp. They later dropped these smaller models, upgraded the line and made motors in the 15-40hp range that were very different from the originals. The older Seagulls were all single cylinder, 2-stroke water-cooled engines, and durability was their claim to fame. Most were direct-drive, in other words, no gear shift, as soon as you started the motor....you were moving! Later models did have a neutral clutch, and the last of the traditional models eventually had full F-N-R shifting. The motors all had integral fuel tanks of either 1/2 gal or 1 gal, except the 7.5 hp and 8 hp which did use remote tanks. They were smelly (10:1 gas/oil, later 25:1 ratio), somewhat noisy (but not unbearable), and tended to vibrate. They also had the bad habit of leaving and oil slick in their wake due to the rich oil ratio.
After saying all that, would I ever buy another one? YOU BET! How many modern outboards can be easily owner repaired in the cockpit of a boat? How many modern outboard lines have most parts common throughout the whole line? The Seagulls were one small step up from an old fashioned "one-lunger", and they had a sound (OK, and smell!) all their own, I can identify the sound of a seagull from quite a distance! Many of the Seagull "Forty-Featherweight" and "Forty-Plus" models were sold to owners of the early O'Day Day Sailers because they were light, yet powerfull and easy to remove from the transom when not in use. One unique feature of all Seagulls was that you could remove the tilt-pivot pin and lift the motor up leaving the mounting clamps secure on the transom.
Sadly, Seagulls are no longer made, parts are still available from various sources, but with only used motors available now....I have a 2001 Johnson 4 hp on my DS II. I like the Seagulls, but the Johnson better met my needs.

Rod Johnson, "SUNBIRD" (rjohnson24-at-juno.com)