Visit our Popular Forums

bangkaboat · 29-04-2011, 13:56

After an exhaustive search, I finally found a boat in Newport Beach. While it is nothing like the boat I began searching for & was about $35k less than I'd planned to spend, it is one that I'm familiar with & a decent base for refitting, without a plethora of electronics that I prefer to choose myself. No big surprise, though, that is usually the way I end up!

What is noteworthy, however, is the surveyor & rigger I hired. Faced with a long list of surveyors in the area, I talked to some boating friends in the area & each gave a few suggestions, but all over-lapped on one name, John Bowman. John did a very thorough survey of the boat & gave me much ammo for renegotiation. He also recommended Richard D'Amico, from Independent Riggers, who was extremely thorough in his inspection, which also helped to bring the purchase price to a preferred level & brought forth issues that hadn't been noticed. In fact, Richard will most likely be the one I hire to re-rig the boat. I had wanted to make some modifications & he worked up a plan for the strongest, safest method to make the changes, then suggested a few more corrections.

I'm sure that there are a lot of good surveyors & rig inspectors out there, but my past experiences up & down the coast have been less than satisfactory, so I figured it was worth passing these names on.

As well, I should mention the selling broker, Bill Forsythe, who has made buying a boat in California a pretty straight-forward proposition for a non-citizen/non-resident. If I were looking for a buyer's broker, he'd be the one I'd call.

Mike

imagine2frolic · 29-04-2011, 14:04

Congradulations Mike on the boat. When do you hpe to have her ready to sail?.......i2f

bangkaboat · 29-04-2011, 14:27

I was planning to be ready by July, but am also kicking around the idea of holding off while I deal with non-related issues in Vancouver. I'll have to get the Admiral's opinion. Regardless, we'll be down again in May, to visit friends & arrange for some work to be done on the boat. We're having the boat moved to Wilmington this weekend to avoid the $900+/month at the Bahia CorinthianYC.

bangkaboat · 29-04-2011, 14:30

Any set plan for "Imagine", yet?

imagine2frolic · 29-04-2011, 21:05

I leave for Fl. thje 2nd of May, and Panama on the 9th, and then Hawaii....

......i2f

bangkaboat · 29-04-2011, 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by imagine2frolic

I leave for Fl. thje 2nd of May, and Panama on the 9th, and then Hawaii....

......i2f

Rock & roll!
Great to hear! Jeanne wants to join me for the first leg, so I'm showing her every scary video I can find on Youtube. OTOH, she'd sure make the trip more fun, not to mention restful. Just as well to make the start soon, they're talking about that Japanese debris hitting Hawaii in under a year.

dohenyboy · 29-04-2011, 22:41

I second the verdict on Mr. D'Amico. I live in the area and I never heard a bad word about him. He did a superb job on both boats he worked on for me.