Advice for purchase strategy

[jnfrey]

too much work. buy a boat ready to go. you want to cruise, not work on a boat.

Originally Posted by witzgall

Hi all;

My wife and I are shopping for a bluewater boat for cruising. I have found a vessel that has peaked both of our interests. The hull was professionally built, what looks to be a great offshore design. We really like the hull and on-deck layout. It has a simple, but robust sloop rig.
The interior was owner-finished to spartan standards. Essentially, they finished to boat as a coastal cruiser, and outfitted minimally. The interior, while funtional is not 100% complete, and would need some reworking. There is little in the way of extended cruising gear - no autopilot, no windvane, nor dodger, bimini, proper refrigeration. Only two working sails. The net result is that is is a great start for an inexpensive bluewater boat, but not a very attactive boat for somebody shopping for weekender.

The boat looks to have had very limited use, and it was finished in the mid 90s, so it looks very clean.

So here is my dilemma. I have looked at many pics, and had a long discussion with the broker. No alarms are sounding. This is a lower priced boat to begin with, but I feel that it would need to come down another 30% before it would make sense for us (we would need spend ~$3k to ship it for starters.) I am hesitant to spend the $$$ for both of us to fly in, rent a car, to see the boat, without knowing that we could purchase the boat for something that makes sense for us.

So it it were you, how would you proceed? I have several ideas, but instead of stating them upfront, I would like to hear your ideas first.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

[jnfrey]

you want to go cruising, not work on a boat. find one ready to go.

[Captain Mark]

Originally Posted by Pblais

Chris,

If the long distance negotiation is a problem. Contact a surveyor and have them do a quick walk through and then call you on the phone. Agree to some hourly rate fee. You don't need an offer to send out a quick survey check. Then you can decide if all the rest of the formal process is worth your time. In a long distance situation it could be a "don't bother coming" call you get. Those are the boats you don't need to survey or write an offer on. Even if you had someone you knew and trusted you could have them climb aboard and look see for you.

This is sound advice. Buying a boat essentially starts as an emotional reaction to seeing a boat that will sing to you as you are in the dinghy and heading toward her and if that's what you found in this first boat, follow the advice above to start, it can't hurt and will be easier on the wallet then airfare for 2.

Yes there are those that say, buy a boat that's ready to go and get out there cruising... I myself would rather buy the boat that has the lines that attract me to it, and has the overall design that I want, then if I have to spend some time "laboring in love", well all relationships require some work!
Follow your heart, but be sure to keep your hand on your wallet!

Mark

[sv_makai]

I am a firm believer in go sailing not work on the boat. But buying a boat ready to go and one that needs work is a balance. I don't beleive you will every find a boat ready with every system you want already installed, unless you buy it new.

Buying somebody elses fully equiped boat comes with work and possibly extra expense. If it is older the pricing needs to be adjusted for the older equipment onboard that will have to be replace sooner rather than later or upgraded to meet your needs. More than likely the workmanship may not be up to standards. I have helped many a friend undo or correct previous owners installation messes.

We bought our boat Makai new to avoid the previous owners mess and to get the boat we wanted. So buy a boat that is more fully equiped is great, but be sure the price reflects used equipment and be prepared to spend more to replace or add or just live with what the boat came with.

[swagman]

Chris,
I think Pauls given the wisest initial advice if you really wish to learn more about this boat. Get someone local with knowledge to go see the vessel and get that feeback first - and if it is favourable go see it.
Absolutely no negotiation advantage (IMHO) in making any form of offer before you travel - as if its worse than you expect - the vendor is unlikely to drop much, knowing you've invested in the journey.
But I'm with the majority is saying there are thousands of boats for sale - and unless you are located hundreds of miles from all of them - it might make more sense to refine your search closer to home.
Good luck
JOHN

[Lancerbye]

Interesting thread. I went through this type of search last year. I had my eye on a couple of options, so using airmiles we flew 700 miles to have a first hand look. The one we were the most interested in looked great in the pictures but turned out to be poorly finished and poorly organized. The second one needed a lot of work and would have been too hard for the two of us to handle in our age group. So we went home a bit dismayed and kept looking. We found a few more via Yachtworld.com in the same area and once again used some airmiles and went looking.The firstboat which had looked pretty good in the pictures was a pig, the second boat had a few problems we didn't want to deal with, the third one did not have very good pictures and I was so disgusted with the other two that I was going to pass it by and go home, but we had some extra time on our hands so we confirmed the appointment and went to look at it. It was a gem with everything we wanted and then some. We dealt on it , did some good negotiating, did a agreement to purchase based on survey,etc. and finalized the deal. We are happy that we spent the travel time and money to look for ourselves. As it was previously stated, sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.

[Antares]

Lancerbye, great reply. I had a similar experience that my advise was based on. The listing was (before yachtworld) was brief, the price seemed a bit low so after hearing the boat needed work, I asked if they would consider an offer under X. The broker said they would submit it to the owner so off we drove to check it out. It was dirty, full of stuff to the point where you could not see the hull sides and it did not run well. Under everything though was good equipment, a fair number of sails and a good design. We offered under x, ended up with the boat and after much cleaning and tlc had a great boat for many years.

[slomotion]

if you are looking for a steel boat and live on the American East coast, you better get used to traveling - the selection is not that good. One thing that sort of makes sense is a Caribbean cruise - yeah I mean like on Carnival or whatever. Steel boats are much more common in the Caribbean, cruises are cheap, and they obviously serve another purpose which is a nice bonus; but if you coordinate it properly, you might be able to check out a couple of boats. eg.: YachtWorld.com Boats and Yachts for Sale=

No - I don't know anything about this boat and I am not recommending it. Here's another I don't know anything about:

YachtWorld.com Boats and Yachts for Sale=

The nice thing about Caribbean boats is that they are already in paradise.