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.