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And here I am - damn fool - about to embark on doing up a old 28 footer! But I have learnt some DIY skills....the hard way. Don't follow in my footsteps, unless you like being poor 😉

I have read some but not all the novels written on your various posts. I think your budget is way too low for what you want to do. And your ideas still seem very scattered for someone giving themselves 2 months to buy from your position. A boat in your budget will likely have many major systems on the brink. Any one of them could need half of your budget plus to remedy. You say you have more money to fix, I’d tend to be looking at buying the best you can afford, not buying cheap and fixing, which will cost more in the end for certain. Imagine two boats of the same design and age are for

The problem with licensing is the cost of administering it, the new agencies set up to police it etc. Who's paying? Its either through licensing fees which will never cover it so general taxes. For a tax averse society that doesnt even want to pay for vital infrastructure etc are we going to be happy to pay for more policing of a pastime with a very low accident and mortality rate? This kind of incident is fortunately very rare, compared to road accidents where up to 10 people die every week in horrific circumstances. This is media hype, like plane crashes which are also rare in the gra

Oh my god..he has passed away... Is it too early to ask how the hell can some f__king idiot in a power boat could not see the Ferry. Edit: are we 100% sure he has passed? I just listened to a news report on Radio NZ and they are saying he is "critically injured" but they did not say he had passed?

Is it just me, or are we experiencing months of sh#t weather more than usual. Summer was a write off, and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, albeit winter approaching. It's probably as bad as it's always been - this is NZ, the land of four seasons in a day, but sheesh can't someone go for a sail and get some decent weather to get going, including the Solo Tasman guys / girl... Ah well, I guess that is why we have some of the best racing sailors in the world...our weather demands it.

Can't imagine there's any hiding from this one.

Yes, there are photos of him on Social Media with a munted bow railing and blue paint scratches, but standing by the scene.

Re navigation, yes you can go portable ( I went to Fiji and back using my cellphone).

Oh my goodness, you have to admire these guys, it's very frustrating out there. Just look at the track of Crocus. There's breeze coming!!

I'd be willing to bet- that spending 25k on a boat and then spending - as others say above-another 25k getting it up to living standard, would be WAY more expensive than spending 35k on a good boat in the first place. I've watched several of my yacht club members, over the years, buy a cheap boat as a do-up. it doesn't work

As someone who over capitalised a 26 foot boat by about, oh....$100K, guys like Panther and Mattm are speaking the truth. You sound, with all due respect, green as grass - much like I was 7 or 8 years ago. EVERYTHING ends up costing you DOUBLE if not TRIPLE what you think it will - and yes, you will be paying NZ's exorbitant prices for everything from paint to rope to fittings - everything marine (if you want quality) is damn expensive in NZ. Even the chinese sh#t fixtures and fittings sold by a lot of Chandlers is expensive. Save up $60 - $70K and buy a nice comfortable 28 -32 footer,

You will be denied entry into the marina without insurance which will in turn require a recent survey which will at least document the faults but possibly mean it cant be insured, rinse- wash- repeat.

One other thing to think about is power. Many of the boats in your budget will have very old electrics, does it need a rewire? Does it have an electrical wof for plugging in at a marina from time to time? Are there enough batteries? How will you charge them? Unlikely to get a genset, so you’d rely on solar and the main engine. How much space is there for solar? You maybe need quite a bit, $1k+? Would you need to have a solar arch built? +3k more? Then you’ll still need the main engine, standard regulator on factory alternator? That’ll need quite a few hours at idle, or even at crusing revs to