Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 5

27. Jun. 2014
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Planning the Trip, The Boat
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1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL/ Charlevoix, MI

Spent all night thinking about our decision.

Drove Miranda to the Miami airport at O’Dark Thirty in the morning to catch a plane home. She changed her flights to get home for a family funeral. It’s hard to be away when something big happens like that.

I was on a flight later that afternoon, so went back to the hotel. Called Alexis and discussed the boat. Walked around the hotel room. Filled out a contract with rough dates and our firm offering price. Walked around the hotel room some more. With a trembling finger I clicked SEND and fired it off to Alexis. Did one more room lap.

Checked out of the hotel and got out of Dodge. Driving around Fort Lauderdale and Miami was not too different than driving around Santiago, aside from people cursing in Spanish. Perhaps more lanes for people to careen through. Everyone is more spatially aware and conscientious of other drivers for sure though.

Walked around the airport after checking in. Beats pacing a hotel room. Went through security and did some more pacing. Man, you can really pace fast on one of those horizontal catwalks. Makes for good thinking. One of the scariest things of the trip was being out of contact for several hours while big decisions were being made and big questions proposed. Not being able to hash out more details with Miranda was a killer, but maybe for the better. Sometimes we go into spiral dives when we cross-examine things too much, something we’ve been known to do.

Would Dariousz take our offer? Would he go with his current proposal? If he didn’t take our offer, we wouldn’t have to deal with contracts and sea trials right away, could have a summer to decompress after our life wrap-up in Chile. On the other hand, Bubu was the most immaculate boat we’d seen, set at a good price, and absolutely ready to roll. An esteemed Lagoon 380 owner’s version, no less. When would we fly back for sea trials if the deal went through? How would we transfer funds? I wish people didn’t look at me so funny while I pace up and down the aisles on the plane. What would we do with it between July and September when we moved aboard? Seriously, people, quit staring.

Sweet jesus.

Bounced from Miami to Chicago to Traverse City. My momma picked me up at the airport and we drove an hour north to Charlevoix. I was so wrapped up in this decision, I barely noticed I was home. It’s usually a pretty striking feeling. It did feel like the longest trip home ever. Left Santiago and didn’t get home for a week!

Had a late night sandwich and beer with my mom and Denny and told them about the whole process. Didn’t hear anything from Alexis, so I poured myself into bed to sleep horizontally.

Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 4

26. Jun. 2014
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Planning the Trip, The Boat
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1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

Thursday. We were hoping to meet up with a broker we had already talked to when we were still in Chile, but he’s been down in the Carib selling a boat and we’ve been playing phone and email tag. So, plan B. In a quick perusal of Yachtworld and Sailboatlistings we found three boats of interest with the Multihull Company brokerage. Gave Alexis de Baucaud, their senior broker, a buzz. He too was down in the islands, but set us up to check out the boats on our own! Armed with some addresses and key-codes we jumped into the car, again, for a treasure hunt. There’s always a mast at the end of the rainbow. All week we’ve been driving up to some unassuming house, not sure if there’s any water nearby, and lo and behold, a mast sticking up from behind the low, one story house.

Our first boat of the day, a 2001 Fortuna Island Spirit 37’ was an immediate hit. Great size, nice and beamy. Felt solid and stable. Lovely open cockpit and excellent access to uncluttered decks, solid bimini and superstructure, well outfitted, and good vis from the helm. Nice open salon and galley up. She had a few knicks in her decks, but then again, so do I. We scampered about happily, feeling a little sneaky for being there on our own. Peered in cupboards, through hatches, and under mattresses. It immediately went to the top of the list.

Our next stop, luckily only a few minutes away was a Maxim Yachts, Voyage 380. Again, snuck behind someone’s house, slipped through a fence on the side, and finagled our way into the boat via a lock box. I think the James Bond music was playing the entire time. The Admiral was stout and strong. She would’ve been a favorite had we not seen the Island Spirit previously. The salon layout was much more crunched and the overall space on the boat was inefficiently distributed compared to similar boats. Would do the trick without a problem through, I’m sure.

Our last stop of the day was to see a 2001 Lagoon 380. Dariousz, a Polish-French gentleman was selling it right after seven years of cruising it from the Med with his wife and young daughter. He took great care, pride, and records of his boat, all of which he showed us with eagerness. The boat was immaculate, almost perfectly loaded, and at a great price. The only problem is that the great price is still at the upper limit of our funds.

We toured the boat with Dariousz, then sat and had a beer with him in the cockpit, chatting about the boat, international living, and futból. He had Brazilian beer, Brahma, in honor of the World Cup that was playing in the salon. He told us the boat was pretty much sold to someone in Boston who didn’t even come down to see it, but still wanted to haggle over the price. He was adamant that he set the price fairly, and that anyone who came down to see her would agree and not insist on haggling per industry standard.

Of course we loved the boat immediately. He asked us if we had liquid capital, which we do, and he started discussing selling it to us instead. I think he partially didn’t like the current buyers as much as us, and partially thought that we could move the boat faster.

Called Alexis when we left as a rumbling thunderstorm came in and started spattering the mango trees around the boat. He gave us the scoop on how we could potentially throw a bid coup. We took notes, sort of stunned that this might even be a possibility, our brains churning over the logistics and gravity of the situation at hand. We went out for dinner and over an hour or so weighed the pros and cons of the deal. Miranda was enamored with the boat’s immaculate condition and sturdy feel; I played devil’s advocate and discussed the price being higher than we had originally been planning to spend. We hemmed and hawed. We looked at our finances, and attacked the situation from all different angles.

Then we decided to go for it. We made an offer.

Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 3

25. Jun. 2014
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Planning the Trip, The Boat
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1 Comment

Author: Miranda

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

After a quick hotel breakfast (man, having real coffee everywhere is fabulous! I love you Chile, but I will never, ever miss Nescafe), we headed out to meet up with Steve again from the Catamaran company. Steve had three boats to show us, and he never disappoints in finding us a group of boats in which one as different from the next as possible in the world of catamarans. It’s so nice to compare many different styles of boats.

We started at a 4o foot Norseman. Oh baby, this boat was ginormous! I started daydreaming about all the storage and all the things we could fit in this cavernous honker, and I had to mentally slap myself in the face. No! Living simple and light… that’s the plan! So, while being a very cool boat, this lady was just too large for us.

Our second boat was the dark horse of the group. We had no expectations or previous experience with Fortunas, and this little Island Spirit had a long list of positives. We especially loved the spacious and open cockpit, as well as a comparatively wide beam for it’s length. Being 35′ long and 22′ wide, this chunker is almost a square. While maybe not “the boat,” this was our favorite of the day. The only point that made us skittish about the boat was the unconventional aspect of having hybrid engines instead of diesels. This boat is basically a Prius made for water. Not sure how we’d fix these in remote places, but we would like to research this a little further before we check this as a positive or negative.

Steve’s last boat was a Jeantot Marine Privilege 39. She was a little older than we were looking for, when it was customary to have galley down. We really are looking for a galley up model, though I did like the foredeck layout of the boat. Felt like a solid craft though.

Bloody hot. Got in the car after our time with Steve to 101°F and almost sizzled on the leather seats of the car. For all the griping we hear about the heat and humidity though, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Cartagena oppression. We felt like spring chickens even in the sun here comparatively!

Our last adventure of the day was a quick drive up to Fort Pierce to see an Fountaine Pajot Athena 38. She was on the hard, with an interesting superstructure davit built off the back of the boat. Though the salon is a bit more snug than others, I really like the layout of the boat. Good size, fairly well equipped, but a touch older than we’d like.

Drove back to Fort Lauderdale. Feels like we’ve been living in the car. But it has A/C in south Florida summer, so that’s just fine! Stopped at Whole Foods. Holy crap! Where has that been all my life! It’s like we’ve been living on a different continent for seven years. Seven years…. shit.

The search continues tomorrow.