It's doesn't. Not at all. Like I said, I have owned, restored, and loved old boats.merlinuxo said:
But we have to accept the fact that due to the sailboat boom in the late 70s and early 80s, there are more sailboats now than there are sailors.
That statement scares the crap out of the sailboat manufacturing industry. It's also why you see them looking hard at any way they can attract new owners, and a lot of that work involves building boats differently then they did in the past. Look at all the cats at the Annapolis boat show, the new Beneteau Sense line,hunters eSeries, and 45 foot boats designed to be easily sailed by a couple in their 50s.
Back to the old boats, a good percentage of these are way past the point of economic repair. And few have any true historical significance that warrants a full-on restoration from junk. I agree it would be nice if we could give them a respectful burial, but we can't. But we do need to start looking past them ALL being candidate for saving. That might have been true 15 years ago. It's not true anymore.