Sea Trials on "Island Princess"

Mark Tobin couldn't do the sea trials until Sunday, March 22.  We were originally scheduled to drive home that day, but agreed to delay to accommodate him.
Sunday was clear, calm seas and almost no wind.  A  great day to inspect sails, even if we couldn't use them.
Mark was there on time, and we motored out the long, narrow channel from Boca Chica.  The boat did fine, although the Raymarine RC435 Chartplotter is nearly useless in the sun.  Once clear of the
channel, we launched and inspected the furling main and headsails.  No noted problems other than age and as I expected them to appear.
My next trick was to hard-over the steering and listen for groans from below, or looseness in the rigging and to get a rough idea of the heeling moment of the boat.  On my 31 and 34 this results in a very noticeable heel and a quick turn.  We call the turn a "doughnut" as it appears to make a "hole" in the water.  The 36 has much less heel than the other two boats.
The next evolution gave Mark some concern, as I would not have normally operated my boat this way either, but sea trials are extreme events.  I tasked with a 5-minute wide-open-throttle (WOT) run in forward gear.  The purpose of the run is to determine if the boat has the appropriately sized propeller and what the "emergency" forward speed is  The boat did 6.6 knots per the GPS.  Since we were running easterly there may have been some current, but way under a knot.  The 3850 RPM makes me think she's slightly "under-propped" and could use a bit more pitch, but there was no smoke and the boat handles well.
The 80% WOT run in reverse was also questioned.  I explained to Mark that going into a transient slip at Cooper River Marina, Charleston or Skull Creek in Hilton Head may require the ability to stop and maneuver against a 2-3 knot foul current.  IP handled it well at 2950 RPM and 3 knots during that 5 minute run.
The next most important item on the 36 for me was the windlass and anchoring systems.  I asked Mark to drop and retrieve around 20-25 feet of chain in the channel to check the operation.  The down part was as expected, although it sounded a lot noisier than I remembered.  Retrieval was a total fail and explained all the noise.  The gearbox was trashed.  Mark had said that the boat was used in charter and of course the nimrods would use the windlass to pull the boat over the anchor rather than motor ahead and use the windlass to just retrieve chain and anchor.  I understood, but the windlass is a discontinued Simpson-Lawrence with very little support.  Additionally, to accommodate the Hunter's lack of a properly-shaped chain locker with at least some chain fall, the windlass was modified to become a "pickle-fork" design with the chain exiting in the plane of the gypsy forward and sliding down a board.
Back at dock, Mark acknowledged the failure and we gave him a check for the deposit contingent on repair of the windlass.
If the windlass can't be fixed or replaced, I will walk away from the boat.  Island Princess is a nice-looking boat with appropriate wear and tear for her age, but since there are 21 H36's for sale east of Texas, I do not intend to buy her with a major operational failure at any price.  Life is too short.