Purchase inquiry

There are a couple of points that haven't come up yet. Hull weight was 95 kg, but they were pretty robustly built BUT... in this instance I'd want to take a very careful look at the hull where it has been sat on a poor quality launching trolly. Has the weight of the hull started to deform the hull where it hasn't been properly supported (the term for this is 'hogged')- just from your picture that would be the first thing i'd look at.

Even in Spain 800+ euros is a lot of money for a boat of that age - that would be all of 50 years old now and you can see from the rust streaks at the chain plates that this is going to need work doing, which equates to more money being spent!

It is a shame as the Marlin, certainly the Mark 3, was a lovely boat, here in the UK you could almost see it as a 'mini-Kestrel' but they certainly sailed well. Comparisons with the Gull, yet another Proctor design, are misplaced as the Marlin was quicker than an Enterprise. I've long held that a well rigged one, set up to fly the decent sized spinnaker that the rules allowed, was a very handy boat to be in when racing on a handicap basis (I say this with some feeling having been accused of 'banditry' when I raced one and recorded a number of wins) - I liked it a lot.

You might ask then why, if it was an 'ok' boat - not a great one, but far from a bad one, why the boat didn't prosper.  The sector that it was targeted at was super competitive, the Larks and Enterprises plus  the GPs and all the others in the 13 to 14 foot range were dominant yet at the same time the phenomena that was the Mirror was just exploding and it was clear just what the Marlin was. The promotional material called it a 'general purpose' dinghy but the Mirror, GP14 and Wayfarer had that angle covered from small, to medium then large.  As a training boat it was maybe a bit too slippery, although you could get the smaller set of cruising sales as an option. It could have been pushed as a club racing boat and with the bigger rig and spinnaker it certainly worked at that BUT..... there were so many other really good boats already offering great racing under the umbrella of an established class structure.

None of this really helps you (except the warning to check the hull shape where it has sat on the trailer) but I hope this works as 'background' for you. One thing though is near certain! As long as the sails are reasonable, you will enjoy sailing it, the Marlin was always a lovely little boat, pure Proctor!

Dougal

The boat is in Murcia in the south of Spain (I am also from Spain), so it has not been very battered by the weather. I am being offered a second hand trailer with papers for 800€ for that boat, but I was looking to buy a new one as I think it would be better. Specifically I saw this one:

Maybe not a future racing but there are plenty of old boats in the dinghy park that could give years of fun. Hours per year my £360 eBay 55+ year old boat is getting more use and more enjoyable sailing any boat in the past 45 years of sailing.