Sports cruiser modification

Tony Davies' couldn't find his dream boat 'off the shelf' so he took matters into his own hands with a 1978 Reinell 26-footer

- TONY DAVIES

After 26 years of happy ownership, I sold my 12 metre (39ft) steel flybridge cruiser and decided to downsize to something more economical. To make a complete change, I wanted a fast-planing boat as all of my previous vessels had been either displacement or semi-displacement.

With a nice wad of cash smouldering inside my back pocket, I started browsing the market and narrowed it down to two– both French designed: The Jeanneau Leader 805 topped the list with the Beneteau Ombrine a close second. Both were around £40,000, so they were well within the budget. They each had a private mid-cabin with a proper door, wide side decks, and both were good-looking boats. However, once I started looking more closely at the specifications, I realised that I'd need to make all sorts of modifications to bring them up to the same spec’ as our previous boat. For example, neither had an ice-maker, nor a drinks cooler locker and the galleys were also fairly basic. It seemed a bit daft to spend £40,000 on a boat and then start cutting it up! It was clear I'd never be happy with a production boat, so I started looking for something I could again fit-out to suit my own requirements.

A 1978 26ft Reinell V-204 was lying in the car park at Watchet Marina. Although more or less abandoned, it had not been vandalised, so in 2015 I bought it for £2,500 complete with V8 diesel engine and an obsolete OMC ‘Stringer’ outdrive.