A potential VolksCruiser project…

So, there’s this dismasted Endeavour 32 with a dead engine that’s sorta/kinda for sale here that would make a good candidate to turn into a VolksCruiser…

It’s a Ted Irwin design which, before Endeavour bought the molds, was called the Irwin 32. All in all not a bad design.

Of course, the problem with any boat without a rig or working engine has very little value other than the sum of its parts which in this case pretty much amounts to the current street price of the 5000 pounds of lead encapsulated within its keel.

Doing a quick price check of Endeavour 32s for sale I come up with a pretty wide range of asking prices for boats in decent shape that ranges from $4.7K to $28K putting the average price somewhere in the 14K zone. Which says to me that while not a bad boat it is certainly not real popular and you should be able to find a good cheap one fairly easily… Definitely a good candidate for a couple looking for a cheap boat to go cruising on.

That said, it also means that fixing up a dismasted/engineless example would be stupid unless the boat was VERY cheap and you’d need to sort out the rig and propulsion systems on a very short shoestring budget…

As it happens you might say I have a cunning plan or two that might make that possible. But, more about that later…

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  1. Bought a dismasted Pearson 32 Vanguard about a decade ago for $3000 in St. Pete, Florida. Diesel was in good shape and motored it up the gulf coast, to Panama City, to a mom and pop dock I could work on it in the water. Interior was 60% done or so. Had all sails, even a spinnaker, which I promptly sold off. Reinforced the coachroof, put in a welded up steel partners tube with tons of attachment points for deck blocks, etc., for a Van Loan style lug rig set-up. Found Tom Colvin info on sizing steel pipe as a mast and welded up a head fitting on it. Mast went in to the keel and lightly stayed it off. Sewed up a 430 ft. sqr junk sail of polytarp (quick and easy). Used the boom of the old rig as yard of the new one (too heavy, utlimately, but worked). Saved a working jib from the old suit of sails to use, Colvin style, on the front stay. Knocked off a nice little interior, simple and efficient. Later went to a smaller lugsail of better material and experimented with a mizzen too. But, ultimately, it worked well and all pulled off on a micro-budget. Balanced nicely but unless one wants a rig that, as Tristan Jones put it, "goes to windward about as well as Grand Central Station, the old one would have done far better. But, it balanced well and was a joy to use, especially off the wind.The previous owner had changed values and just wanted out.

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