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Hi Jacmac
Now that's an observation I've been mulling over too. 30K for an ST does sound steep, but there again the owners of another ST in the 1500-series have so far spent well over 50K on her restoration, so I think you have to consider each boat on the market as a separate entity rather than compare her to others of her class, say Che-Sara (which actually looks pretty good to me) or the heavily modified (ruined) Swift, both of which have been the subject of chat on this forum recently. In either case a proper restoration job will likely cost well over 30K so even if you are given one you'd still end up spending this figure. There seems to be a lot of wooden WWII veterans on the market,and this applies equally to other types, I can cite HDMLs which are up for sale which are little more than houseboats, and are going for 10-30K whereas Dad's HDML has the original Gardners in perfect fettle and she is totally sound and ready for sea, and is going on the market for only 40K, to bring one of the others up to her standard would cost at least 100K! I think it's fair to say it's more a matter of the heart than the rational mind, buying and fixing up one of these boats is a huge commitment in more ways than purely financial. Also depends on how badly the vendor wants to sell, for instance Dad at the age of 83 has decided to buy a plastic boat to play with as he's just not up to scrambling around in bilges any more! The seller of this ST is presumably not in any great hurry to sell and is presumably confident she is very sound indeed.
Rgds,Christian.
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