Here are some pictures of the boat in question, which I once owned. The engine does look and run very well. The story was it had been put in an older boat and not used very much. I had a marine mechanic go over it and he agreed that it was in very good shape. I paid $6k for her (WC #94) with the understanding certain things would be completed by the seller, which never happened. I had her surveyed and had all the through hulls removed, serviced and reinstalled by Anacapa Marine (the picture in the travel lift and in the yard). I had the prop shaft removed and replaced and a new cutlass bearing installed as well as a new bilge pump (Rule 550) and battery. The boat had been painted and nonskid (sand) installed. The inside paint job (as you can see if you look closely at the inter pictures) was not really good quality with some waves/runs and a lot of blow-by on the interior wood. She is also very much in need of a lot of cleaning. The fuel tank is the standard Triton unit, so unless someone has figured out a way to compress fuel (fuel.zip???) there isn't any 100+ gal fuel capacity.
The reason I no longer own her? First, she partially sank and was probably six inches from going all the way down. The engine was under water and most of the interior wiring and engine related gauges were trashed. There was also the issue of having to travel to California to work on her and when being out of sight, being out of mind. In other words stuff that was supposed to get done never did unless I was there to supervise. Now, regarding the flooding, I had the engine professionally pickled, so it is probably still in good condition. No water was in the fuel, so all of that is probably ok. The refrigeration unit located to port behind the ice box is probably trash. The mast was not stepped and the survey found an issue with one of the fittings which was not replaced. Also the bow pulpit was not secured. The flooding was the result of a bilge pump being placed in the boat and its discharge hose running over the side falling into the water (the installed Rule 550 had failed, actually this was the second one which had failed). When the pump quit water was back siphoned into the boat, so it was not a result of any failure on the part of the boat. After all this happened I flew to CA to evaluate the situation, replaced the battery, installed a new bilge pump (way higher volume this time), and had the engine pickled a second time, just to make sure.
At this time I had intended to keep her. BoatUS, the insurance company, had offered me 8K (had her insured for 10K) the kicker here was I got a salvage title, which proved to be a death sentence when it came to reinsuring her with BoatUS and raised a bunch of other issues. Also, California wanted to tax her even though she was registered in New Mexico (check her Hull ID number). After considering the cost to replace the interior wiring, travel, etc. I decided to take the $10k from the insurance and let them have her.
From looking at the pictures on eBay, it looks like the only thing done to her has been to raise the mast and install the boom. I wonder if the questionable fitting has been replaced though. From looking at the interior pictures I'd say nothing has been done here either. I paid $6k for her and probably had another $4k into her mostly from the boat yard repairs and having the marine mechanic align the engine. BoatUS gave me $10k so basically I broke even. I believe the current seller, which is the guy I originally bought her from only paid $1k to BoatUS for the title, so his investment appears to be minimal.
She isn't a bad boat, but needs a lot of interior work. Assuming the engine is in good shape she is in excellent shape below the waterline, but definitely not worth what he is asking.
One other thing that comes to mind relates to the ports. When I finally got him to install the ports (out of sight, out of mind again) he fairly well messed that up, so there may be some issues here as well.
All in all I chalked it up to a learning experience since I just about broke even and had some nice times in California wondering around the docks and meeting some interesting liveaboard types.
As an aside, it was interesting being able to compare a WC Triton to an EC Triton. There are definitely some things about the WC boat I liked, namely the solid glass deck, but there were some things I did not like. The location of the water tank eliminates most of the bilge, so it would not take much to start flooding the cabin sole. There is also an issue which came to light by reading some of the MIR posts on the NTA site, like exposed lead found in the water tank of one WC Triton when the owner installed inspection plates in his water tank. Also none of the ports with the exception of the one in the head area open and the main cabin windows are just bolted to the outside of the cabin, no trim rings like an EC boat. Again, an interesting learning experience, especially considering it didn?t wind up costing me that much.
By the way, BoatUS was wonderful to work with and I would highly recommend them for you insurance needs. It seems the BoatUS policy would have covered recovery had she actually sank, which most insurance policies do not. Something to think about?
My apologies, as this is kind of rambling, I was trying to cover all the bases.
