ramkay
Veteran Member
American Marine made only 350 hulls of the GB32 in wood. I take it it was built in Hong Kong at the old bottling factory. A wooddie needs to be taken out of the water every year for below the sea line inspection, stripping, filling and antifouling. It is quite time consuming and expensive, besides it needs to be prepped by marine woodworkers and plank cracks filled with cotton and then corcked the proper way. Once the hull is done and since the engine is reconditioned, the rest of the work topside should be pleasant for you to do it and learn as you go. However, the sliding windows are very tricky and if not done properly can create awful leaks. The original deck is 10mm Burma teak which is the best in the world, and I take it it's about 8mm after all this time, fix it but do not replace it, for teak replacement will run you around $25K for this boat. The teak surface on that specific boat is around 20m2 (200sq.ft). Remove all the old black joints corking and apply new 3M Marine Sika under the loose planks and in between, let dry and sand it 180 grid and finish with 320grid. Do not perform any inside work before finishing the flybridge deck and the walk around decks. Once the outside work dries off, hose it down at medium pressure to check for leaks. The bilge being dry is a very good sign, get yourself a marine mechanic to check all systems, fix leaks at the transmission level and teach you basic and routine maintenance for your engine. From the pics you posted you look young and full of life, so one advice for you, get the damn thing and enjoy the living hell out of it for the wooddie GB32 is a hell of a boat and a classic. FYI I saw one similar 1973 I believe for sale in Long Beach CA, in immaculate shape in and out for around $35K, so your purchase price of $12K is right, for you will dump around $20K to bring it up to your expectations but this will take you about 2 years, so you have time to save some money on that end. BTW I own a GB32 1978 and that's my last boat, I love it. Good luck.