Just spent the day with a surveyor on a Gulfstar 50 and then paid the owner the deposit. So, after about a year from the dream stage to research, to lots of reality checks and financing nightmares etc..., I can say that we now own our own sailboat.

The boat will house my family (wife and a 4 year old son). We will live-aboard in the SF bay area. The boat is not perfect, needs a lot of sweat and tears but I feel it has so much more joy to offer.

This will be my first boat. I already read lots of suggestions on sailnet about starting with a smaller one but my situation was all or nothing. So a leap of faith here.

The posters on this board have been a great source of information and inspiration. As I restore the boat, I will try to draw on your knowledge and share my experiences.

Exciting to be a part of this community.

Congrats.... as you probably know, we have a rule here... no pictures?... didn't happen!

You are right. I just realized that all the pictures I took are of the things I need to fix on the boat. There isn't one decent picture to show you here. Shame.

I will have to go there over the weekend for more pictures.

Welcome aboard and congrats...

Congrats. I can't wait to see the pics. I think you'll like that boat a lot. I may well buy one of those as my next boat. I have a Gulfstar 37 currently.

Thanks a lot for the welcome. I already love the boat. I found one OK picture. I will post more soon.

Cool.
You are going to love the way the boat looks. I know that I do.
You are also going to love varnishing the 'eye brows', hand rails and toe rail. I know this because my boat also has them.
More pics please.
What year is your Gulfstar 50' from? Engine? etc.
Congrats.

Exterior teak is in pretty good shape overall for now. Interior is another story. I will post more pictures after another trip to the boat. It is a '79 model with the smaller engine (62 hp, I think it is a Perkins 4.154). It is the original engine, don't know the hours but the owner says the boat was hardly ever used until 2 years ago. It runs just fine and the owner was all too happy to rev it up. I didn't get a separate engine survey though.

Congratulations on your new boat. Hope you have many enjoyable years with her. Like a house, there will always be a to do list. Enjoy. Post some more pics.

Congrats... my wife and I are talking about going down the same path in the next few years so I'd love to hear about how you like the boat as a liveaboard.