It did say in the advert on the Eventide Owners for sale page that Sandance was in a sail away condition. When we got to Beaumaris and climbed onboard I immediately had serious reservations about that statement. She had been sitting on her triple keels in the boatyard for several seasons and looked to be in quite a shabby neglected state. It was only a short sail to get her back to the Clyde, maybe two or three days if we sailed her during daylight hours, surely it was worth taking a chance? The cockpit side benches were sodden wet, delaminating and crumbling between my fingers. The cockpit drains were a strange configuration with two drain pipes well below the water line. The standing and running rigging were over ten years old, and the topping lift had frayed and snapped off along with the aerial in a winter gale
I was very disappointed because the cost of bringing her home to Scotland by road would be expensive, but I was not willing to go to sea with her in such poor condition.
Below in the saloon there was a strong smell of diesel fumes which caught the back of my throat. There was no ventilation in the coachroof, no forehatch, and all of the portlights (nine in total) were sealed and could not be opened. There were two 10 gallon gerry can type fuel tanks, one secured in the toilet compartment on the starboard side and another on the portside under the galley sink, and both of them were vented inside the saloon.
The hull though, was in great condition and she was well built, possibly over engineered... and where could you buy an eight metre steel hull for two thousand pounds? Regardless of the rest, she was still a lot of boat for the money and an excellent buy, so we bought her... It would cost us a further thousand pounds to bring her home to Scotland, but we would have a solid seaworthy hull to work with...
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