Newest owner of a 1988 Pearson 39-2 #31 (deep draft). Just thought I would share the story (as I heard it) of this boat an how I fell into it.
I am now the third owner of the boat, I've raced a lot of Melges 24's, J/24, M17's, cruised all over the great lakes on a Catalina 30 and wanted to get into a larger cruising boat. I saw this boat pop up really under priced (24K) and knew there had to be something going on with it. The boat was only a couple hours away so I jumped in the car to check it out.
I spoke to the broker and he told me the previous owner had an "incident". The owner is 85 and planned on taking her from WI, through the lakes and up the St Lawrence. He made it as far as Port Sanilac, MI. He was alone on this trip and got caught in a squall. He lost control of the boat, was driven into shore and grounded the boat. He jumped in his inflatable, went to shore, knocked on a lake house door and asked to use their phone. Sea-tow came out a day later, broke him loose and towed him to Port Sanilac Marina.
The boat was hauled right away and assessed. He had it insured for 80k, insurance company didn’t want to total it and sent the owners a check to do the repairs. They decided they were too elderly to continue sailing and took the money.
Port Sanilac Marina looked at it and gave an estimate of 57K to fix it. Of that 57k quote there was only 3k in parts the rest is all labor. After taking a look at it, talking to the repair manager (New Zealander with 30 years experience rebuilding boats) I decided to tackle the repairs myself. I've been working on boats my entire life and pretty confident I can get this done. The keel needs work, rudder needs to be dropped and rebuilt, new rudder bearings, keel grid has a very small amount of broken tabbing, new bottom, new sails and who knows what else I'll find when I start grinding glass. If there is any good news, the Yanmar just had a 9k rebuild done on it a couple years ago and started right up with zero issues.
I ended up picking her up for 10k, Even if by chance I dump 10K into her myself (with unknown items) I'm still ahead of the game. I'm not planning on selling her anytime soon so it should end up being a great boat at a great price.
Here are a few shots below, Enjoy!
I am now the third owner of the boat, I've raced a lot of Melges 24's, J/24, M17's, cruised all over the great lakes on a Catalina 30 and wanted to get into a larger cruising boat. I saw this boat pop up really under priced (24K) and knew there had to be something going on with it. The boat was only a couple hours away so I jumped in the car to check it out.
I spoke to the broker and he told me the previous owner had an "incident". The owner is 85 and planned on taking her from WI, through the lakes and up the St Lawrence. He made it as far as Port Sanilac, MI. He was alone on this trip and got caught in a squall. He lost control of the boat, was driven into shore and grounded the boat. He jumped in his inflatable, went to shore, knocked on a lake house door and asked to use their phone. Sea-tow came out a day later, broke him loose and towed him to Port Sanilac Marina.
The boat was hauled right away and assessed. He had it insured for 80k, insurance company didn’t want to total it and sent the owners a check to do the repairs. They decided they were too elderly to continue sailing and took the money.
Port Sanilac Marina looked at it and gave an estimate of 57K to fix it. Of that 57k quote there was only 3k in parts the rest is all labor. After taking a look at it, talking to the repair manager (New Zealander with 30 years experience rebuilding boats) I decided to tackle the repairs myself. I've been working on boats my entire life and pretty confident I can get this done. The keel needs work, rudder needs to be dropped and rebuilt, new rudder bearings, keel grid has a very small amount of broken tabbing, new bottom, new sails and who knows what else I'll find when I start grinding glass. If there is any good news, the Yanmar just had a 9k rebuild done on it a couple years ago and started right up with zero issues.
I ended up picking her up for 10k, Even if by chance I dump 10K into her myself (with unknown items) I'm still ahead of the game. I'm not planning on selling her anytime soon so it should end up being a great boat at a great price.
Here are a few shots below, Enjoy!