It was a little after noon when I arrived in Easton, CT, responding to an advertisement for a 1975 O'Day Mariner. I was pretty certain my quest was over. I had cash in my pocket.
The ad seemed fairly honest. It said, in part: "The boat is in sailing condition with no leaks, but as expected for it's age can use a little attention. It is a sturdy vessel though and a great sailor."
I had made one wrong turn on the 150 mile ride from New Jersey and then had sailed past the correct exit on the Merritt Parkway because Googlemaps had given another exit number. But once I discovered my mistake, I found the boat on its trailer in a tree-shaded development where each house, probably built in the 1960s, seemed to have an acre.
The first and most obvious error in the advertisement -- that the boat had an "aluminum" trailer -- escaped me as I got out of the car and approached the bow of the Mariner. (It was a galvanized steel trailer, not quite so light as an aluminum one would have been.)
The second problem did grab my attention. One of the tubular braces that keeps the trailer axel in the correct position -- the one on the port side -- seemed to be bent. I made a note to check the brace on the starboard side to see if it had the same shape.
Circling the stern, I noted that there was no tiller in the rudder, which was mounted on the transom. When I tried to lift the rudder off its gudgeons to inspect it, it was stuck. By now, the seller had met me and he banged the rudder off of the gudgeons. Not a big problem, I thought. I then proceded up the starboard side, having thus far spent no more than a minute inspecting the boat.
Cosmetically, the hull looked in okay shape. There were some scratches in the gelcoat, and the O'Day insignia on the cabin trunk had been painted sloppily. But I was not yet focusing on the boat itself but rather the trailer.
Now I bent over to inspect the brace on this side and saw that it was straight, not bent. Not a good sign.
I squatted beside the trailer wheel to improve my view and noticed a wedge of what appeared to be pressure treated lumber jammed into the suspension. I might have asked the owner to explain had my eyes not been distracted by a more serious issue.
The centerboard had been lowered to rest on the trailer, and enough of it was exposed that I could see it was rusted. I reached under the hull to feel the centerboard, and my fingers disappeared under a thick layer of rust.
I peeled off a chunk of the centerboard, stood and looked at the owner and said: "Well, that's a killer. I won't be buying this boat."
In less than two minutes, my visit was over and I headed home. Somewhere out there, there may be a "sturdy" Mariner "in sailing condition." This was not such a boat.