Fixing up a Tahiti? Buying a glass one?

Posted By: WayneS
Date: 12/27/06 1:28p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: 30' Tahiti Ketch (Arthur)

I will start by apologizing if I am underestimating your knowledge of these boats or their maintenance.... easy to do on a listserv. First-- if you are not already, please be aware that the Dreadnaught company built fiberglass Tahitis of 32 ft. length. Some factory finished, but quite a few hulls were sold and finished by home buyers. Some of these are great and on the market at good prices. The hulls could be solid fiberglass or balsa cored; my own preference would be for the former, because balsa coring was not perfected, as I recall, until a few years after these boats were built. Be that as it may, though, I haven't heard of one of the balsa-cored boats delaminating. Best place to look for a good and inexpensive one might be San Pedro and other parts of the Los Angeles harbor area. (They were built near Santa Barbara, but everything there is too expensive.) Getting a slip, never easy these days, is easier with a glass boat. For a wood boat the size and weight of a Tahiti, perhaps forty years old (it might be hard to find one that young, but it would be worth holding out), and given that you would not want the boat to deteriorate under your ownership, I would estimate that you would want to spend perhaps twenty hours a week working on it, at least for the first few years you had it, and possibly afterward. Hands down, the best way to learn how to do the work is to learn from people who own similar boats. I think that, unless you know such people, your best bet is to read mid-century books, like Chapelle, on yacht building and on maintenance. Look around, too, for an "Ancient Mariners Society" with a listserv, and join, so that you can hit up the members for some advice. Hanna designed several boats in this size range and a little smaller, and you might want to expand your search to include them. Some of them were very attractive, and appealed to a lot of builders. They're great boats. If you get one, I'll envy you. Good luck.