fail to launch :(

26Mar25
Despite drizzling weather yesterday I we t through SELKIE tidying her, mopping up & really checking things out. 

At the time I thought "that's strange". Five individual lead billets lay strewn about down below. The important element was that they were lose; not fixed to the hull. This is a highly dangerous thing. Shifting ballast can cause damage or cause the boat to turn turtle & stay there. 

I wrote the agent R & previous owner P. The only other thing I knew about the ballast was that P had fixed long steel plates to the sides of the keel. 
 
R asked a rhetorical question about the centreboard "I hope its not plywood".

P later volunteered that a nonstandard CB made of aluminium had been fitted after the original steel & ply plate had delaminated. The ingots had been stowed (left sitting on berths) "to make up the weight". 

I then went to replace the rotted out brake cable on the trailer, & the reality dawned on me. This boat, in its current state, is not seaworthy.  Making it seaworthy would mean replacing the centre plate & removing the keel plates. 

20:00hrs
I've advised R that I'm not prepared to make major structural repairs (to a boat I paid top price for &) that I want to cancel the sale. Another 4000k return trip to South Australia ahead. 

27Mar25:
Or sending it by road freight? I've posted on " Tickit" & can expect quotes to trickle on soon.  

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