Later this week I will be looking at a 1973 Venture 17 that I am interested in possibly buying. I know it has no motor, sails or running rigging. With regards to the boat, other than the rudder, pintals and gugeons, centerboard, centerboard cable, chain plates, and mast step, what should I pay special attention to? I want to create a written checklist to refer to while I am looking at it.
OK, I'll bite. Can't let your questions go completely UN-requited.
When I bought our 1973 V224 I knew practically nothing about small sail boats I thought I was getting a sweet ship cheap since she was painted all pretty white. Turned out she was a wreck under all that pretty paint. The guy begging me to buy at his loss should have been a clue.
Well, I'm a handy guy and I fixed it. All of it. Leaned a lot and made some mistakes for sure that I had to revisit but...
shes mine- worth the $$$ or not. Many hundreds of work hours and thousands of $$$ in decent equipment she is coming along.
Years of work left to do though. Its been a labor of love/hate.
But: Anything on a nearly 50 year old plastic boat can be fixed. At that age it must be expected that things will need fixing.
Biggies:
Sails - I finally bought all new since the ones that came with the boat were trash. Sailed on them for several years though.
Got about $4,000 into sails so far (I have trouble finding used sails my size).
Motor - Mine came with a 1978 15 horse. Too much motor - too much weight, too much unusable power.
Rather have a 8-9 horse.
Soft Decks - Not always a problem, depends on where they are. I had to replace the entire cockpit floor right away, the core under the mast step right after that. Both side deck cores, part of front deck core, and repairs to stringers and bulkheads on the hull floor.
Pretty much anywhere there are deck fittings, I had to replace cores under them since they were never sealed properly and got wet and rotted. A soft/wet rotted deck core can be detected by tapping with a hard blunt object and listening for the sound changes.
Trailer - at least in good enough shape to not have to worry about it coming apart on you. If its stock, expect some repairs.
Don't expect too much for cushions/interior. It is after all OLD. The very first thing
I did was rip out all of that outdoor carpeting Mac liked to glue on everything.
Ventures were built as AFFORDABLE boats. That means the fittings and such were CHEAP. Fine for a day sailor in moderate breezes but I do big wind and extended cruises so almost all of it had to go.
I essentially rebuilt my wreck from bottom up. Redesigned the interior, reworked all of the rigging into what I want, not stock.
I use my boat as a mini-cruiser that is trailer-able so that's why I stuck with this boat. Its the right size and shape for single handing.
I think you didn't get any replies because many New Posters show up, ask a bunch of questions, someone takes the trouble to answer, and they never appear again.
So here I am taking my chances....
Good Luck and sailing is a life style choice - not always fun or easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is...