ya it looked decent in person too, from a distance...

I have the same boat, a 1998 29 SCARAB, and my deck has these little gel cracks everywhere, they do in fact do not effect the structure of the boat, but I think the Wellcraft boats do this with age...I have seen this on a 33 and 38 before.
Too bad the guy did not disclose this, when I have discussed selling my boat to a few interested parties, this is the first thing I disclose, because cosemetically it bugs me to a point, and I got an estimate to have the deck re-gel coated and the quote with paint was about $10k, at that point it does not bug me that bad.
The gel cracks are one thing, but he should have been up front also about the mechanics of the boat...too bad you were misled.

I know it's hindsight but you should have taken advantage of your west coast OSO brothers and had someone out here look at it for you. There is a lot of us out here and I'm sure someone would have looked at it and reported back. I would have been happy to depending on its location.

I'll second Al's (BajaFresh) statement. Some of us are even perfectionists who can't find boats for ourselves, but will gladly give you a laundry list of "faults" on boats you are interested in. Unlike the owner of this Scarab, we'll even put our glasses on. :D

Michael

I just don't understand why people lie so much when selling their boat. Hell I point out everyting I think is an issue to a potential buyer. In most case the stuff I point out is so small the buyer would have never seen or noticed. But I feel better knowing everything was disclosed. I am really picky. Not so much when I buy, as long as they are things I can fix. But once I own something that's when I become very picky. The slightest flaw drives me nuts. Anyone who buys a boat from me will get it in much better shape than it was when I bought it.

I should have seen if someone could have taken a look at it for me first. O well lesson learned. I don't understand people that lie either, Im sure he thought I would get there and drool over the two foot of paint that looked good and hand him a check! Karma will come back and bite this guy!

I went all the way from California to New York to find out the seller was lying. I've learned my lesson the hard way, too.

Michael