The Great Wander

We’d been told that the right boat will come at the wrong time.  You won’t quite be ready for the boat, it be too early, or it will be after you planned on buying it.  You’ll be in the middle of getting settled in a new home.  Find a reason for it to be the wrong time, and there you have it, you’ll find your boat.  There’s a lot of truth to that statement as we found out.  Our boat found us…

We’ve been watching Yachtworld, just looking to see what’s out there.  But the big problem with buying right now is storage, for almost 9 months…and now as we are finding out, chomping at the bit to get to the boat!  But we really didn’t pursue anything because, well, it just wasn’t the right time.  We were content to look and watch prices and see what features were adding to the cost of a boat.

One day, Sandy forwards an email to me from a friend, telling her about a boat that is for sale.  It’s a good price, the boat has been well cared for.  I read the email and tell Sandy, yeah, let’s ask about, what’s the worst that can happen.  We ask for the name of the broker that the sellers are going to use and we set up a time to talk to him about the boat.  We are interested, so let’s see what other information we can find out.  He confirms for us that the boat is well cared for, but it’s a 20-year-old boat, so there’s going to be some issues, in general however, it’s a solid boat.

After talking to him, we have a decision to make.  Make an offer, knowing it’s June or July at the earliest before can to her to make any needed repairs and in the meantime, she sits in Florida, albeit in a bit inland (on a river) or do we pass and wait to see what else comes on the market?

We decided that things were just right for this, even if the time was wrong.  It’s a catamaran in the size that we are looking for.  It’s been well cared for, so there’s not necessarily going to be a lot of work that needs to be done.  We’ve got a recommendation from someone that we trust.  It’s in the right price range.  So, we make an offer.  Within hours, the offer is accepted.

Now that we have an accepted offer, it means we need to plan a trip to Florida to see the boat and have a survey and sea trial done.  As with any big purchase like a house, you need to make sure that the boat is seaworthy and there isn’t something that’s going to bite you later.  I get a surveyor lined up, the lift to put the boat in the water is reserved and then it’s time to head down to Florida.

As the three of us got on board and started walking around taking a look at things, we all agreed.  This really was a good boat and we liked it.  There wasn’t really a reason for us to back out of the deal unless the survey and sea trial showed something really major.  There were a few things I knew to look for in a Lagoon 410 from watching Sailing Nahoa, but none of those issues appeared to exist on this boat.  Of course, just like with a home inspection, you aren’t ripping things out, so yeah something could always show up.

The survey and sea trial turned up some issues, but nothing that couldn’t be addressed.  If there were major cracks in the hulls, that might have deterred us, but all of the issues were things that could be fixed.  Some plumbing, some electrical, a couple of other things, but everything could be addressed.  It was amazing to be out on the water, checking things over, eating some pizza (yes the sellers even proved that the oven worked by baking a couple of pizzas for lunch), and knowing that this could be ours soon. 

This was the last point in the process for us to back out of the deal.  After listening to the surveyor and the broker, we decided that we would move forward.  We wanted this boat.  We wanted to call this our next home.  The sellers agreed to a couple of concessions and we had a deal.  Afterwards they started to show us more of what’s there, fishing gear, extra lines, snorkeling equipment, all of that stayed with the boat.  It was going to be ours.  We had a great dinner with them on board and made some new friends.

The big question is, what’s the boat’s name.  The sellers had named her One Life.  We decided to keep that name because it’s a lot of why we are doing this.  It fits.  Stenciled above the saloon door is the saying, “Don’t dream your life, live your dreams”.  It’s what we want to do.  You only have one life, so live it.