I've spent every spare minute of the last three months fixing up my boat. I think the work is awful.
Boat restoration is hard, nasty, time consuming, tedious and frustrating. The chemicals are foul. The materials are expensive.
Everybody knows it makes no economic sense anyway. If you sell the boat, you'll be lucky to get back the cost of the materials. Forget about the hours of labor. It's easy to blow half a day completing what seemed like a "ten minute job."
Let's face it. In order to get good results in a restoration project you have to be very handy and/or very anal. You expect perfect results after all that research and prep work. You don't get perfection. Not likely on your first effort. But if you don't try, you won't even get very good.
I wish I could hire a guy named "Sven" who would do the work properly and not rob me too much. I would probably put his kid through college. You don't find guys like that around here. Instead, you have boatyard workers who don't like or understand sailboats. You wan't something done right, you have to do it yourself.
Of course there are benefits. A sense of pride and accomplishment. You acquire skills. You know your boat. When you sail past some piece of crap production boat they can't help but gawk open-mouthed at a true American classic.
But, it doesn't come easy. The boat is surely a jealous mistress.
I'm sure I'll feel differently when I'm finally out there sailing and all this work is a distant memory.
Would I do it all again? Sure. In 5 or 10 years I'll probably have to.
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