“One of the very best boats ever designed. I based a good part of my design work around the Haida 26. I love that boat.”... Robert Perry
Robery Perry sure knows what he's talking about.
For a variety of reasons I monitor sailboats for sale in a few places and a 26-foot Haida in Washington State popped up on my radar today.
The thing is, back when I was living on a CAL 20, I lusted for a flush deck Haida 26 that was for sale in the marina which had seduced me with the siren song of go-anywhere possibilities. In other words it was a pretty awesome boat.
The boat was everything my Cal 20 was but bigger and tough in a way that made the idea of sailing off to Hawaii and Japan a much more sensible proposition. However, as a starving film student it was just outside my budget.
Still, It's one of those boats I've always wanted and wonder how things would have turned out if I'd been able to scrape the needful purchase money together.
So, seeing a Haida for sale on Craig's List for only $750 really caught my attention and had me (for a few moments at least) considering buying a plane ticket to Seattle. Hey, it would be nice to have a Pied à l'Eau in the San Juans...
Sure it's a fixer upper and that's not a bad thing. Back in the days I was living on a Cal 20 in Sausalito I spent hours and hours working out how I'd fix up the Haida I was so enamoured with. The fact is that the Haida 26 is a very simple boat and at 26-feet there is actually very little to replace or fix so the cost of fixing it up would be fairly minor if you were doing the work yourself.
Even having to buy an outboard for it I can't see it taking more than $1500 to put things right.
I recently saw a nice Haida going for $8900 so the fixer-upper VolksCruiser route makes a whole lot of sense if you're able to do it right.
Sadly, it's the wrong coast and time for me and a project for someone else in Washington State who I hope knows what a wonderful boat it is.
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