Anam Cara Adventures

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The long search:
finding the perfect boat!

Well if that isn’t an oxymoron, HA! there is no such thing as a perfect boat!

However, on the search for the almost perfect boat, we haven’t fared all that well yet. But we do hope to score soon, otherwise we will have spent our cruising funds before we even own a boat. And that would be sad.

So here is how it has been so far: check www.yachtworld.com and other websites every day for new boats, and research every boat within our budget that we think might be seaworthy enough to carry us to far off destinations, that we think we would like to go to. Whenever we find a boat we are interested in, we call the broker and ask a list of questions. After a few years of looking, and the last two months looking for REAL we have learned a thing or two. First rule: never trust a broker! Then make sure you are a royal pain in the behind, and ask all the questions and ask them to check out parts of the boat BEFORE you buy a ticket to fly thousands of miles to see a boat that turns out to be a lemon. Let me give you an example of just that very scenario.

The boat that barely floats!
(or our trip to North Carolina)
August 2008

Now, we live in California, and California doesn’t boast a vast array of blue water cruising vessels that are equipped for offshore cruising that are within our budget. So after exhausting our search in California, we realized we were going to have cough up some dough and travel elsewhere. I had always thought people were crazy doing that sort of thing, or that they had to be extremely wealthy. Well, now we understand. It has nothing to do with wealth – it has much more to do with how badly you want to live that dream, especially when you are fully committed having sold house and business, and are ready to give up all your homely comfort for a tiny sailboat. But I digress.

So we called this broker in North Carolina about a Bayfield 36 – a lovely looking boat that seemed to meet all the requirements. Now, he did tell us that the boat had survived a hurricane down in Georgetown in the Carribbean, while on the hard (an expression, for you landlubbers, that tells you the boat was on stands out of the water). He said it was the only boat that didn’t fall off its stands during that hurricane, and yes, the boat was in great condition to take anywhere around the world. We arrived in Oriental, North Carolina (“the sailing capital of the Carolinas!” as we were told) full of anticipation, after a long plane ride and a four hour drive. On the drive there, I read out loud from one of our “bibles” “Inspecting the aging sailboat” on how to do a quick survey of a boat to check for structural problems that you may regret having once you have purchased the boat of your desires. This was good. Very good. Because, when we arrived at the boat, and the broker left us alone to look over a seemingly lovely boat, we began our “mini-survey” only to find this boat had DEFINITELY fallen off the stand during a hurricane.

Clue number one: the door to the front cabin did not close, and not just by a small margin, but by 1.5 inches. That, we had read, indicates that the boat has suffered enough impact to move the bulkheads, which are the structural aspects of the boat that basically give the boat its structural integrity. Clue number two: the fuel tank under the V-berth had moved and was bent out of shape. Clue three: the floor boards wouldn’t lift up. Clue four: the cabin sole was slanted upward to starboard. Clue five: there was a huge flat area on the port side of the hull. Clue six: a repair on the starboard toe rail that was highly suspicious, and a lot of cracking in the fiberglass. Clue seven: the binnacle was loose. Clue eight: a soft spot in front of the binnacle on the cockpit floor. And the final straw: when Dave jumped down into the cockpit, water squirted out of the screw holes holding down the cockpit floor. Now we absolutely knew we had a lemon on our hands! The boat had obviously suffered a huge impact on its port side, and now is basically a liability to anyone who owns it. But Dear Mr. Broker had even assured us he would not sell the boat to anyone else before we arrived as he knew we had to fly in from California!!! Needless to say we were quite taken aback at the ethical standards by which some people operate, and we were also quite proud of our new marine surveying skills, which made us feel like detectives who had just uncovered a crime based on the clues available.

The boat we fell in love with!
Annapolis, Maryland

From North Carolina, we took a whole day and a half to drive up to Annapolis to look at a Vancouver 36. After our experience in North Carolina nobody was going to pull one over us again, so this poor broker probably thought he had a pair of cukoos on his hands when we started to check the boat over as though we were forensic specialists! But hey, in the boat buying business it is BUYER BEWARE!

Anyway, this boat was a beauty! Such a lovely salon and feeling inside you could just feel yourself sitting there on a cold fall day with the diesel heater warming up the cabin, a nice cup of tea, and a great book in hand. And she was also in great condition. I was ready to make an offer on the boat right there and then. But luckily, we have each other to keep each other in check. Even though we did make an offer on this lovely vessel, the boat had three major drawbacks:
1. An engine with almost 10,000 hours on it. Most diesel engines will give you 5,000 hours is the given wisdom. A new engine with installation etc. costs between $20K-$25K according to several estimates we got, and would have entailed cutting out part of the boat to get the old engine out. 2. No room to exercise. I can’t live without exercise, and this boat has nowhere to roll out my trusted yoga mat. 3. Not visitor friendly. Now, while we are not looking for a yacht hotel, we would like to have close friends and family come visit occasionally. Especially my parents, of course. The layout of this boat was such that this would have been incredibly impractical, and we doubted anyone would want to undergo the inconveniences this would pose. For example, to access the head (ie. toilet) you have to walk through the cabin with the only bed on the boat, which also has no door to give you any privacy.

So, after days of agonizing, and the fact that we would have overspent our budget on this boat, we had to give up this dream, and look for another. But boy, she is a beauty, and to the lucky sailor(s) who get to own her next – I am envious!

So many boats in Florida!
September, 2008

Time is running out, our cruising kitty is dwindling, and we still have no boat. So we decide to go where the biggest selection is – Florida. Surely surely here we can find her! We have about ten boats lined up and off we go.

We get off the red-eye flight from Los Angeles at Fort Myers and the boat hunt begins. The first boat is a Young Sun 35. A fine little boat which the owner goes over with us with great pride. He has obviously taken good care of this boat, and we like it. But it is small, and we would really like to look at all the other boats we have on the list, before deciding to buy it. So we start driving. We see a Pacific Seacraft 37 and an Island Packet 35 – both boats would do it, but we really can’t afford them. Why look then, you ask. Well, we are eternal optimists, and somehow you always think that this might be the one, even though your rational mind knows the truth – which is that unless you win the lottery, don’t even think about it. We see a Corbin 39 which Dave can’t tell the owner enough how much he likes the boat. So then I start thinking this is it, this is it!!! And as soon as we are alone Dave says he likes the boat but not THAT one! Oh boy, and I already had us moved in in my mind and was cleaning all the dirt that was still in evidence from the three guys who had sailed it to the Mediterranean and back. An emotional roller coaster! It gets much worse though.

Next, another broker had his eye on us, and lured us to come to his office, which was out of our way. But he sweet talked us into it, dangling a huge carrot in front of us, with a boat we wouldn’t even have dared dream of. A Lord Nelson 41. Due to the most sad circumstances, this boat was a distress sale, as the owner was terminally ill, and his wife needed the boat sold. So she was willing to let it go at 40% under market value, which made it fit into our budget. The boat had everything on it we would have wanted – from windvane to watermaker to all the books for cruising. The drawback – the boat was an eight hour drive from where the broker was. But, we were definitely captivated by the beauty of the boat and the affordability, so off we went. Hours and hours up the freeway all the way to Pensacola. I couldn’t have placed it on the map before then.

My trepidation about the boat – too big. Too much boat. In fact, the broker himself had the same type of boat years ago, and when Dave said we didn’t want to spend so much on the boat that we could no longer afford to go cruising, he put his hand up, and admitted that that is why he never went. We should have known right then. But, the lure of the boat was so great that we went anyway. The owner of the boat met us and showed it to us. She was so sweet, and so encouraging. She was under five feet, and when I saw her, I thought “if she can do it, I can do it”. And the boat was gorgeous. No, I take it back, that was no boat, that was a ship. Forty one feet long and a nine foot bowsprit. Beautiful teak joinery, plenty of room, all the best equipment. Why the hesitation??? Well, the boat weighs 40,000 pounds, has the sails of a fifty foot boat (which it needs to make it go!), and showed signs of many many leaks, which we didn’t want to take on. It broke my heart to have to tell the owner we weren’t going to buy it, because she had already shed some tears when she told us how difficult it was for her to see the boat sitting there without use. Her and her husband, after many years of working and saving, had finally bought the boat of their dreams and gone cruising, and had a fabulous time until he got ill with cancer. She kept telling us to make sure we GO!

Offer rejected!

Our next long drive took us back to the East coast of Florida, to see some more boats that we didn’t really like at all. A Samba 38, a Whitby 41 and a Freya 39. All of them very tired and with very optimistic owners who were hoping for huge sums of money for their worn out boats. One had soft spots all over the deck and cockroaches running around everywhere. Oh well.

But we did meet a very friendly broker, Stan, who told us about one of our favorite boats that he was just listing – a Tayana 37. He convinced us it was nice enough to drive another 250miles north to Jacksonville, and it was. First of all the family that lives and cruised this boat were worth the drive in itself. Such lovely people. Their ten year old son reminded me of my brother, and he told me right off the bat that “this boat is a ready to go boat!” Well we loved the boat too – but they didn’t accept our offer!!

To Young Sun or not to Young Sun??

That is the question. This lovely 35 foot boat certainly had us thinking seriously about it. But every boat has at least one thing to make you pause. On this boat it happened to be what we considered a design flaw: the chain plates (which hold up the mast) are embedded into the hull and totally inaccessible. And with a twenty year old Taiwanese boat those steel chain plates will be corroding away slowly. This put a little wrench into our equation, as we were really ready to make an offer on it. But that would be a costly repair, and we were really sick of sleeping in motels and eating restaurant food!

So back to California we went!

Down in Mexico!
Sept/October 2008

The next boat on our list is a Corbin 39. Strong boats built in Canada, well known to be sturdy and many of them have travelled far. We have looked at this boat over the internet for months, talked to the broker many many times, and even have asked him to go on the boat and answer all sorts of questions for us based on what we now know. On the pictures the boat looks lovely, and he assures us this boat is in "above average" condition, bright and warm and homey below decks, and "well worth a look". Plus it is fully equipped, and the owners are willing to accept our offer. So we fly down to Puerto Vallarta to have a look.

After the initial shock of going through the airport and being literally harrassed by time share vendors, taxi drivers and hotel tour people, we finally meet the broker who picks us up at the airport. It is pouring buckets, as this is the rainy season. He drops us off at our hotel, "Mayan Palace", which we booked as a reasonable package deal over the internet. The hotel is a huge resort, very nice, but again, full of time share brokers who keep trying to entice us to free breakfasts and free this and that. We resist the temptation, thank you very much, but we see the poor victims of this time share nightmare the entire time we are there, and find it quite annoying. But back to boat shopping.

The next day the broker arrives to take us to see the boat, which is on the hard at a boat yard. We are full of hope, because this, we are convinced, is THE boat!!! While in Florida, we had seen the word "Corbin" written on license plates and street signs, and being of the optimistic and slightly superstitious types, we thought this must be our sign that we had been waiting for.

We climb aboard, in high heat and humidity, armed with our flashlight to check out every corner and cubby hole of the boat. The deck is in good condition, everything topsides looks okay. Full of hope, we climb down the steep companion way into the DARK interior of the boat. This is what we find: the floor boards are lifting upwards, there is rot under the removable boards, the engine looks a dirty mess, the headliner is dilapadated, there are signs of leaks everywhere, panels are coming ondone, dirt and filth on everything, cupboards and drawersstick and in some places are held together with wire... In the galley is a sign that reads: "Bar open from 0700 to 0659 daily" and there are rum bottles in the lockers that show the signs of the past use of this boat. Need I say more??

Politely we tell the broker that the boat is not up to our standards, and he apologizes a little. I really feel like shouting and saying to him "why did you waste our time and money in having us come down here to look at this crap heap??!??!??" But I don't. Both Dave and I have been brought up to mind our manners, and I am such a people pleaser that I can't even bring myself to feel the brunt of this disappointment right off the bat. Dave does. He is crest fallen. It hits me a day later, when we are now "forced" to spend four more days at a resort hotel instead of proceeding to a survey and a sea trial, when what I really feel is that we should be elsewhere looking for boats and not spending any extra money. This makes it hard for me to enjoy the lousy expensive food, the pool which seems to also be the disco of the hotel, and any other wonderful things that come with this resort and town. So I suggest to Dave that we do something to distract ourselves from our disappointment. We hire a car, drive north along the densly overgrown coastline, and witness the incredible building boom of luxury resorts and condominiums next to the slums the locals get to live in. A country of contrasts, and while the Mexicans seem perfectly happy with it all, I am not. I mourn the loss of their beautiful paradise to high rise after high rise, and it brings up in me more and more sorrow at the state of this planet and the lack of our consciousness, and the inner discomfort of all my own negative thoughts that do nothing for me but spiral me into a state of anxiety. On the tail end of yet another boat-shopping-disappointment I seem to struggle with my emotions, and while I keep telling myself to relax, the anxiety and sorrow that grips me right in the heart, does not want to let go. Or is it me who doesn't know how to let go of it??

Fortunately for me, I have an expert by my side. His name is Dave. He is a hypnotherapist and student of metaphysics. And miles ahead of me in that way. So back in the hotel room he lovingly gives me a long session during which I am able to go back to the times in my life where fear first reared it's ugly head and see it objectively and calmly and let it go. Yes, I release the fear for now, and at last, I can relax. Now we can enjoy the last few days of our forced vacation, and actually find a quiet corner on the beach, away from the noise of the pop music at the pool and the time share nazis. And for the first time in months we relax and rest, and we think about things other than boats.

And this way we can go back over all we have experienced in this crazy boat shopping experience, and rekindle our hope that the perfect boat is still there waiting for us to adopt it. On October 1st, my Dad's eighty-second birthday, we get back on the plane to California. And let me tell you how good it is to be back home for a breath of fresh air!

Boat Survey in Florida

After our trip to Mexico we began discussing boats we had already seen for any strong contenders. Our favorite: the Tayana 37 in Jacksonville Florida. This was the boat that we had bid on previously and had been rejected. We decided to try again. We offered a little more, as we figured we had to move forward before we ran out of funds to shop any further. To our delight, our offer was accepted, probably in part because the owner of the boat had accepted a job in Alaska. So we made more travel arrangements, and full of hope started packing up our garage and selling furniture and donating belongings to friends and the Salvation Army. My beloved plants all went to my dear friend Laurie, who I know will take good care of them with her green thumbs!!!

We arranged a recommended surveyor to drive up to Jacksonville from St. Petersburg, which cost us extra but turned out to be very well worth it. (Anybody thinking of buying a boat in Florida? If you are, definitely use this surveyor: R.D. Shelley). At nine am the owner and his family, the broker, the surveyor and Dave and I all met on the boat. Fogbound we started by drying the dew off the decks of the boat to ease the surveyor's job. From bowsprit to stern, top of the mast down into every bilge and corner of the boat he checked, hammered, mirrored, felt and smelled every aspect of the boat. The owners have maintained the boat festidiously, and so almost everything checked out to his satisfaction. Dave and I were delighted. That is until the moment the boat was hauled out of the water and power washed and the hull exposed. The boat was covered in dreaded blisters, aka "the pox". Oh, what a let down!! The surveyor poked a few of the blisters and exposed the gelcoat of the hull. He said to us: "if the rest of the boat were in this condition, you wouldn't be too interested in it!" Gulp. What did that mean to us?? The boat had been advertised without blisters, and so we were a bit shocked, to say the least.

The remainder of the afternoon we spent motoring up and down the river where the boat is moored, testing out the engine and the sails in a hot, windless environment. I realized that a "seatrial" is not really to test out the sailing characteristics of a boat at all, but much rather for the surveyor to check out all the sailing systems.

Still interested in the boat? That was the question that haunted us the rest of the evening and the next morning, as we had to decide how to proceed with a new problem at hand. I guess if living your dream of sailing off into the great blue yonder were easy, well, everyone would have a boat... So off we went making calls and going to boat yards to figure out what and how long and how much it would entail to get the boat's hull up to par with the rest of the boat. Bottom line - it's expensive (what on a boat isn't???) and it would take anywhere from 2 to 4 months with the boat hauled out of the water to "fix" it. Now the one thing we were assured by the surveyor was that these blisters are not a safety issue, but rather a cosmetic one. You certainly wouldn't want to ignore them forever, but the truth be told, we could still go cruising this year without fixing the blisters, and tackle the issue another day when... well, whenever we have four months to spare and some extra cash...

Ultimately, after a bit of renegotiation we agreed on a new price for the boat, and decided to go for it. After all, not one single boat we have seen has been without something that needs doing, and we will take it on, if for no other reason than we really would like to actually be able to say we finally finally have a boat!!! And there is another reason - the boat feels right. And the people we are buying it from, this lovely, wonderfully connected family with values that one seldom sees anymore, feel right. And so, if the Gods are willing, this will become our home for the next months, years or decades... depending on how we take to the seas and the seas take to us. Alleluja!

As of this writing, we are sitting in Philadelphia at the airport waiting to board our next flight, this time to London. We will visit Dave's family, and I will also visit my parents in Tenerife. We figured we owe them a visit before we disappear from the world of airplanes and cell phones and many many other crazy and wonderful things we live with in this modern day and age.