So, yeah, about that Islander 36 project boat…
Confronted with a boat like the Islander, my first impression is “Ugh”. My second is “Get rid of all the crap and clean the sucker up and there might be a good boat in there somewhere”. And, my third reaction is “I need to do the math!”.
Math, as they say, is important.
The first number I need to find is what an Islander 36 in good turnkey shape will sell for on the upper market. Since I’m somewhat obsessive on what Islander 36 and CAL 34 sailboats cost, the resale value for a good solid Islander 36 is somewhere around $21K. Sure there are I36s for more and less but $21K will buy you a boat in good shape (looks good, runs good, and does not need anything replaced).
With me so far?
OK, so now we have two numbers ($3500 and $21,000) and what do we do with them?
$21,000 – $3500 = $17,500
The next question we have to ask is “How much will it cost to bring the project boat to the level of the ready-to-go Islander 36 with an asking price of $21K?
Obviously it would be stupid to spend $17,500 and a shitload of sweat equity to fix up a boat when you could get a boat in good condition for $21K. Offhand, I’d peg the budget for the fixer upper of being one third the differential which in this case would be $5834.
$3500 + $5834 +$9344
Rounding up to $10K would be an awesome deal on a Islander 36 the only issue being that I doubt it’s doable. Sure you could rebuild the Atomic 4 engine on the cheap and do a bare minimum of fixes elsewhere, but I expect anyway you add it up it is just not a project that makes sense money-wise.
Which is not to say you cannot do a project boat and come out ahead but it takes a plan and the willingness to be ruthless in its execution to make it work. More on cunning plans and otherwise later…