The Great Boat Hunt - It's almost over...

A lot has happened since my last post. I probably should have posted more frequently in the interim, but if you are as tired of the hunt as I am, you can understand why I didn't.

We got word that the seller had accepted our offer a couple of weeks back, as I reported in the last post.  Subsequently, I arranged for our marine surveyor, Jim Campbell, to do his thing on May 13, which was the soonest that I could reasonably be present to participate.

I have to put in a plug for Mr. Campbell here.  The man is detail-oriented.  He went over the boat top to bottom, stem to stern, with the boat both in and out of the water.  He charges a flat rate per foot LOA, which is very reasonable, and doesn't skimp on the time and effort.

About the survey and sea trial:

Jim began the survey while we were still at dock, waiting for the seller and my broker to arrive.  The seller's broker was already there.  While we were waiting to get underway, for the sea trial, a diver showed up to scrape the bottom.  Apparently the seller had this done on a fairly regular basis.  Eventually, we motored down the ICW to Seven Seas Marina and Boatyard, where we had the boat hauled, so that the surveyor could inspect the bottom, rudder, and auxilliary drive system.

The haulout revealed that the diver hadn't really done a super job of scraping.  Although there wasn't any huge thickness of growth on the hull and rudder, there were large areas that he apparently missed altogether.  The prop and drive shaft had also accumulated visible growth.

On the return trip to the marina, our surveyor had the captain deploy the headsail, in order to determine if and how well the roller furling rig worked, as well as the condition of the headsail.

The verbal report on the condition of the boat consumed about 45 minutes, as the surveyor went over his finding with me and my "crew."  Overall condition of the boat, he rated as "average."  This is not a bad rating, and I may get more into an explanation of it, as well as some of the details of the survey findings in a later post.  With a couple of exceptions, we were very satisfied with the results of the survey.

Further negotiation:

As a result of the survey and sea trial, a couple of issues surfaced that had a significant impact on the value of the boat.  For this reason, we felt that the seller needed to give a bit more on the price.  Some equipment listed in the specification sheet was missing or non-existent; equipment which impacted quality of life aboard, and the immediate utility of the boat.

In addition the haul-out revealed significant galvanic corrosion of the prop and prop drive shaft, which the surveyor, in the final report, viewed as a safety issue.  Add to that the need for bottom paint, and the cost of making the vessel trustworthy is significant.

Now the seller stated that the bottom paint is only 9 months old, and we won't take issue with that, but in terms of the life of the paint job, that means that it's half-gone already.  We could have lived with having to paint sometime in the next year or so.

The fact is, though, if old bottom paint that is allowed to dry out, its anti-fouling properties can be adversely affected.  This boat is going to have to be dry-docked other repairs - repairs which, incidentally, are necessitated because of neglecting the condition of sacrificial anodes.  This will take long enough that the existing bottom paint will dry out.  All of this is in addition to the observed fact that the condition of the paint wasn't that good anyway.

We expected to have some commissioning expenses in connection with the boat - that has never been the issue.  The issue is the total price tag of unexpected expenses, and how quickly that price is going to have to be paid.  All in all, we felt that it was only fair to ask the seller to participate, at least to a minimal degree, in sharing the cost of at least the mandatory repairs.

As one might expect, this stance was not well-received, but it did open a dialog, and when we proposed a slight price reduction in lieu of having the repairs made before closing, it was accepted.

Finally:

We have some paperwork to go through, to get ready for closing, and we have to schedule the closing date, but it is now established that, sometime on or before May 29, Gusto will become Event Horizon, and ours!

That's all for now.