Well, I looked at the boat............a beautiful woman who's been badly mistreated, then neglected for years. She went through a rocky time that smashed off a big chunk on the bottom of the rudder, as well as breaking the rudder bottom away from the bottom pivot.
There are several smaller impacts, and especially one larger impact on the encapsulated keel that may have happened at the same time. The seal looks breached (fiberglass integrity broken). Lead does "sound" bonded to the fiberglass though. Worse still, the rudder shaft is jammed tight in the pivot tube down from the tiller. I'm afraid the impact with the Maine ledge to the rudder bent the rudder shaft and jammed it tight.
It may have happened over time, or it may be related to the impact with ledge (lots of that in the water in Maine), but the mast base shows cracking in the fiberglass supporting it. Also worse still, the support post on the starboard side has a small door hung on it, and that door is broken off and doesn't close. I'm afraid that it could also be impact related. Fortunately, the door is off by only a little, so damage may be limited and grinding/beefing up may stop all movement. I should mention that the downwards load from the mast is not supported by a center post, but by a steel bridge that carries the load to each side of the passage to the V berths, thus avoiding that darned center post. That starboard support post is part of the bulkhead, and on that side the bulkhead has some rot at the bottom, not a huge amount like some I've seen.
Incidentally, the chainplates I looked at were not fastened to wooden (and often rotting) bulkheads, but to massively built up thick sections of fiberglass. Was there wood in those thick sections? I don't know. The owner claims there is no balsa core in the decks - 1968 build date makes that believable.
He drilled through the deck so he had an opportunity to look. I did not.
Breaks my heart to see a boat like that neglected.
