I don't know how old this post is (OH, I just saw it was 3-27-09-but maybe this can help others looking at this same boat), but I would hope that whenever you buy a sailboat you expect to repair it, including thru hulls, etc.
I have owned one of these boats for the last ten years. Skinny on these boats is that they are very very good sea boats. They have charter boat interiors, and the head liners have to be battened up. They are prone to blisters (unless peeled and epoxied). I bought mine and re-rigged it with 1X19 instead of the original rod, and replaced the wood under the sink, remanufactured the anchor windlass and reupholstered the cabin. That being said, the thing is a total tank. Mine has a lead keel (not iron or steel), 42% ballast ratio, and a full battened stack pack. The port salon settee lets down into the worlds best sea berth and the boat is simple, robust, and I just can't part with it. I spent my last weekend looking at other larger boats, and came away thinking...Gee, I feel so secure with the double spreader rig with lowers, intermediates, and uppers...10 pieces of rigging holding my mast up. The wheel is perfect, the barn door rudder shaft support and bearings are suitable for 747 landing gear, the cockpit is wonderful (the best place for sunlit breakfasts), and in case you haven't noticed, the opening ports are heavy cast Aluminum Amiot (not some light duty plastic things), the side windows are fastened with half a million screws through a heavy bezel, and the Amiot overhead hatches are built like see-through bricks. The bulkheads are all tight and bonded all round, and the keel is held on with many many very heavy bolts.
Bottom line, is it worth replacing through hulls and applying some work? Well, put simply, I can't buy another Beneteau like it. There are lots nicer, but as passage maker (14 Atlantic crossings) and boat reviewer John Kretchmer told me, this is one of the top budget boats that he would use to circumnavigate on. He did an Atlantic crossing on the same non charter hull, and remarked that it was a very good sea boat.
I was going to buy another boat to cruise on, but my wife and I decided that we would give it a go on this one just because it is such a satisfying boat. Not too pretty, not too glamorous, but it gets there with no drama and no broken anything. What more can I want?
