Contest 29 – Beyond Economic Repair Yacht Disposal

Yacht Disposal is always a shame when the we can see what a nice boat it once was. Sadly this latest Contest 29 fin keel yacht was just too far gone. In our opinion it wouldn’t have sold and would have continued to deteriorate whilst costing the owner thousands in storage.

Sometimes the boats we collect for disposal are just so far beyond economical repair they can’t be saved. When we first visited this Contest 29 in the boat yard she looked ok. We could see that she hadn’t been anti-fouled in a while and she was looking a little green. Her Genoa sail was open to the elements and the dark green colouring suggested she had been there for some time. But as hulls go for old boats she seemed ok.

It was when we jumped up on deck that we began to notice the hallmarks of a scrap boat. The decks creaked under foot and it felt like you might go through them if you were unlucky. The wood on the boat including the tiller were rotten and could break with very little effort. All of the lines and ropes on her where thick with greenery. This is a sign she hasn’t been in the salty sea water in some time.

Her washboards were like the rest of the wood and in a really bad state. Usually in the case of old boats the exterior is not great and the interior well preserved. Sadly this wasn’t the case for the Contest 29. She was full of water and the engine was seized solid. Everywhere you looked it needed attention.

We quickly fed back to the owner that in our opinion it would be more cost effective and sensible to scrap the boat. Especially when you take into account the ongoing storage costs. The boat would have needed new rig, deck reinforcement, sail repairs, new wood throughout, new tiller, new engine, new cushions and headlining, and no doubt new electronics/wiring.

With storage on top you’d easily be looking at well over a £10k bill. Not forgetting the boat would probably need new skin fittings and fresh anti-foul. After all this work you would struggle to sell the boat for anywhere near the money spent. Making her a technical write off.

The Contest 29 owner decided that our yacht disposal solution was a no brainer. There was very little we could salvage from the boat in terms of selling to another owner. We could remove all of the metal from the boat to send that for recycling. The boat yard dropped the mast for us and we did offer that for sale. But after two weeks we hadn’t had any takers so we decided to cut the mast up for her scrap value.

She was pumped out ready for collection by her owner who came to clear any personal items from her. Our final act before scrapping was to remove the bow. This was for the very simple reason that we needed to lose 4ft so the boat sat nicely on our smaller truck. In the past we have removed the bow sections of boats and one even sits happily above our office door.