Lets do it !

Well on December 24th I decided on a boat.. well that is I bought a Farr 6000.  It was more likely that my family would come out on this boat than any other small trailer boat, and share the costs, and in the long run this will be cheaper than a keel boat. It seems to be the most popular boat around both in size, design, and numbers manufactured. In NZ there is class racing for this boat, and it does great double duty as a cruising boat.  

Brought it home from Taupo, a 4 and a half hour trip for my poor little 1.8l manual 5 speed wagon, that really wasn't up to the task. Car = 1100kg vs boat and trailer = 1140kg ! This was the only car I had for the 4 hour drive back up to Auckland was my 1.8l manual Nissan station wagon, which struggled, but made the trip. Definitely need a bigger car. Here is a pic once we got it back to the farm (taking up half the driveway !).

The one we found was in better condition than others I had seen, it also had a full complement of sails - main - jib - genoa - storm jib - spinnaker. The minus, at least we thought was the colour is not the most popular around, particularly when the gelcoat has faded. It was less golden and more tan... than the boat name 'Goldie' inferred..!

The mainsail was looking pretty sad, the numbers had previously parted from the sail, and someone had coloured in the sail numbers with a vivid marker. The condition of the mainsail was pretty common for these boats, many still use the original sail, which is probably fine for lake sailing in light winds.  The rest of the sails were in very good condition. 

On further inspection of the important bits, the drop keel looked in reasonable condition, still mostly covered in paint, not rust, and a new winch wire and reconditioned keel winch had been installed. All the fittings are well mounted, and had been updated where necessary by the last owner.

The engine starts first go, and although I didn't know much about engines, it seems the Suzuki twin cylinder 8hp 2 stroke is quite popular still, being easier to start lighter and smoother than the newer 4 strokes available. It's a 1999 model, and was recently serviced, with only lake use.

 The first picture is from the previous owner, it definately had a lot of oxidation on the topside gelcoat, but the hull was in great condition, with original gelcoat, with a small amount of touching up.

In this second picture, after several hours, boat soap, wash down and cut and polish, came a much brighter yellow, rather than muddy tan colour !  The colour is growing on me, and have people coming up to me all the time complementing me on the boat.