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Any tips on parting out a sailboat?

6K views 23 replies 15 participants last post by  bljones 
#1 ·
Sandy damage has caused several boats at our club to be declared "constructive total losses". Would it be worthwhile for the owners to part the boats themselves? Some have good masts, booms, standing rigging, winches, spinnaker poles, pulpits, pushpits, sails, diesels, and transmissions in addition to the ballast. If the insurance company offers a 35' boat at $3K, wouldn't those parts be worth far more. Clearly, there's an established market for the lead. Is there an effective way to market the rest? It seems wasteful to landfill it.
 
#3 ·
Possibly but it's a lot of work and time, disassembly (in winter), storage charges, advertizing etc. Disposing of the hull would be nasty & expensive too.

I'd take the settlement and let the Ins. Co. flog it to recyclers. Moving on to a new boat would be the quickest way to distance oneself from a disaster like that IMHO.
 
#6 ·
Maybe they could put together a list of stuff to be salvaged, post it here under the classified section and we could take a crack at it. I'm in the market for some good sails for my 27 foot Nor'sea, an electric anchor windlass, a bulkhead mounted compass and a host of other stuff. I'm not getting a warm feeling about buying an electric item from a salvaged boat but maybe it wasn't submerged.
 
#9 ·
If you're parting out a boat on site- speed is the key. You're gonna have to work, fast, crude dirty and ugly. Forget carefully unbolting hardware- cut it free with a jigsaw, chainsaw, circular saw or sawzall. Park a 6 cube dumpster beside the boat and start from the top down- cut the hardware out, toss the waste in the dumpster, toss the good stuff into bins or the back of the truck for disassembly later. Cut the top of the house off, toss it. Repeat steps as necessary.
Buy demolition blades for your saws in blulk- you're gonna go through them. when a blade gets dull, chuck it- the time you save working with sharp tools offsets the cost of new blades. When you get down the running gear get together with other wreckers in the yard to rent a high lift forklift for a day to pull running gear- it's cheaper than a crane and just as effective for pulling out sialboat drivetrains.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Lead is about $1.00 a pound. $2000.00 salvage with $5000.00 of lead bolted to the bottom, just think about that. You'll burn through $50.00 of sawzall baldes and you'd better have a truck to haul the engines & trannies & other metals to the scrapyard and have room for a roll-off dumpster $250.00-$400.00 next to the soon-to-be non boat. Another $500.00 or so to the boatyard for the haulout and the space.
So you pocket about $2000.00 for two day's work right away and then you start selling the good parts.
 
#15 ·
I will bet you can't easily cut a 35ft boat in small enough pieces to fit in a 40 yard roll off dumpster, which is a bit over 20ft long.

Like I said, if the economics worked well, marinas would not be stocked with abandoned boats. They would hire some summer kids and at least clean the yard up.
 
#17 ·
I will bet you can't easily cut a 35ft boat in small enough pieces to fit in a 40 yard roll off dumpster, which is a bit over 20ft long.
Sure you can. it's done everyday. I cut donorboat into pieces small enough to get the entire boat onto a 5 x8' trailer.
Dock Six Chronicles: Adventures in Keel Hauling



BTW, our local scrapyard buys clean sailboat keels for $.55/lb. Mars Keels will pay $.65-$.75/lb, but you have to bring it to them. not real practical for one keel more than 50 miles away, but if you've got a load worth loading on a flatbed it starts to pay off.

Why don't boatyards cut up and dispose of old boats? Likely a bunch of reasons- 1. They aren't in the salvage business. 2. Title and ownership issues. 3. Somebody might buy the whole boat someday- then you've got more work clming in and another slip rented. 4. It's nasty, dirty, itchy, hard, occasionally dangerous work with very sharp tools. If you have teenagers, you know a)how hard it is to get them to do anything nasty, dirty, itchy or hard and b) power tool safety is not top of mind. It would be a supervisory and liability nightmare.
 
#21 ·
I had the misfortune of having to part out a Thunderbird 26 in the early 1970's. It needed repairs far beyond my skills that I could not then afford to have done and I could find neither a buyer nor even anyone that would accept the boat as a donation. And, we had to clear the slip. We had the boat hauled out at a local DIY yard after pulling the mast and laid on her side in a back corner where a modest dumpster was brought in. I eventually cleared about $3,000 for the bits and pieces after 5 daze work in the cold; rain, getting $1,200 for the spars and rigging alone, $500 for the sails, $250 for the rudder/tiller, a good bit for the cast iron keel, $100 each for the primary winches and winch pads etc., etc., etc. (and all of this via word of mouth, notices placed on YC Bulletin boards, and a $15.00 ad in a local newspaper). The most difficult part was actually cutting up the hull with a chain-saw, which burned up 4 chain/blades. I threw the rubbish in the trash but I was later berated by a local shipyard owner that told me I should have burned the bits and pieces and then combed the ashes for the bronze and copper fastenings as they did when they "broke up" a ship/barge (who knew!?!)

I suggest you can accomplish the same much more easily with Craig's list,e-bay and the like, especially if you get a couple of boats together and team up. The "team" could rent a mini-storage locker or two and partition those for each ship's gear and work together on each boat in turn. Once the rigs are pulled and the keels dropped and prop'd, ship breaking isn't a difficult process, just nasty. Wear suits, gloves and VOC rated breathers and have at it.

FWIW...
 
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