Leopard 40 purchase from The Moorings Seychelles

[Piscis]

Just a quick heads up on our 2017 Leopard 40 owners version purchase from the Moorings base on the Seychelles and the passage to SE Asia.

Made offer in March 2022. Offer rejected, made new offer, offer accepted. Signed contract with the Moorings sales Brokerage a couple of days later.

The vessel was in charter until August 2022. Then, for about 2 Months, phase out works, survey and the usual stuff. Handover of the boat was set for around November 10th 2022, more or less.

Then i planned to stay 30 days on the Seychelles to do some own work on the cat, some upgrades and some further repair works. ETD was scheduled for December 10th 2022 to the Maledives for a 10 days passage, crew change there and a 7 days stay in Gan Addu City Atoll. Then departing to Thailand. ETA there was around January 13th.

Timeframe was tight, but we did it and arrived Thailand on January 10th.

Buying process was smooth and we received A LOT of support from the Moorings Brokerage. Sale, negotiations and all talks was done by one person. Between the first offer and the final handover of the vessel, there was a constant exchange of information and support. Most of the time, response time was within a couple of hours. No complains here!

Survey was done by VDL Marine on the Seychelles. Mr. Vincent Leon, the surveyor, was of great help. Survey, seatrail, and much more support as an Agent for me who helped me importing goods to the island (I send at least 3 big boxes during the 6 months pre handover). During the phase out works, Vincent was many times at the vessel, having an eye of what has been done so far and keeping me updated. Great work and great support!

Purchase was VAT free with the obligation to export the vessel within a certain time frame to keep it that way. That part, and much more, was arranged by the Moorings manager of the Seychelles Moorings/Sunsail base, JP.

I arrived on November 10th 22 and headed over to the Moorings base on Eden Island Marina. Beautiful place... but not much time to enjoy the Islands...

For the next 30 days i had a tight schedule:

- Own Seatrail
- Install 2500W Inverter
- Install Radar
- Install AIS
- Install sat phone
- Install some multimedia stuff
- Watermaker
- SCUBA Compressor
- RIB Dinghy (not easy to get one on the Seychelles!)
- 4 stroke Outboard (yes, i hate 2 strokes... LOL)
- Some cracked windows had to be replaced
- Some cosmetic upgrades
- Reorganise Helm possition
- Check all maintainance works being done and get some additional spare parts
- Purchase of 20x30L Jerry cans and bunkering Diesel (Just that mission took 1,5 days LOL)
- Dived the vessel a couple of times, cleaned props before departure.
- Repair
- Provision
- Get ready for the passage.

During this 30 days, i received a lot of support from the people at the Moorings base.

The base manager, JP, offered a lot of help on getting parts, preparing for the export process and the clearing out formalities. He drove me to various Marine supply stores and the port offices.
The Mechanics and Technicians Damien, Marcus, Steven, Sharkley and Biggi were always at the dock when i needed some help. If something was broken or i needed to get some help, they were there.

The Ladies prepping and cleaning the vessels for the next charter guests did a great job and helped me choosing the right cleaning products.

I received almost daily visits from the Moorings supervisor Stephen. He was very helpful getting some more information about parts and were to get BBQ and stuff. Great guy and had some nice chats with him!

Everything went very smooth and without ANY issues.

The vessel:

5 years in charter - you do not get a new boat! But: The boat is in very very good shape. I was very happy to see the vessel being taken care of and that there are no major issues visible. All installed items are working and in clean and good order. All issues in the survey had been repaired/taken care of. More than that: some parts failed after handover, like bilge pump float switch, port engine blower, a small head issue... all was taken care for!

We did the 1 month passage without major issues.... One engine stall problem half way between the Maledives and Indonesia could be addressed after a sat phone call to Marcus, the Engine Mechanic.

OK, i try not to write too much, sorry. If you guys want to know more about the passage, i can write that part separately.....

Finally... I can say that the whole process, from first contacting the broker, negotiations, survey, handing over and getting post purchase support including exportation and checkout procedures were absolutely great and without much reason for any complaint.

I would do it the same way again!

John

[Tin Tin]

Well done.

[Piscis]

Thanks!

The Moorings is branding their Leopard 40 vessels as "Moorings 4000", adding a couple of red and blue decals.

One of the "cosmetic items" i liked to change was, replacing the red/blue stickers.

Here a few before/after pics...

[chubby]

Originally Posted by Piscis

.


....Made offer in March 2022. Offer rejected, made new offer, offer accepted. Signed contract with the Moorings sales Brokerage a couple of days later.....

curious.
what was the difference between the rejected and accepted offers?

[Piscis]

Originally Posted by chubby

curious.
what was the difference between the rejected and accepted offers?

Second offer was 3,6% above first offer.

Best regards,

John

[fcftampa]

thanks for sharing!

[Sos]

Thanks for the update

[rabbi]

Cool story. Buying a boat that far away from home in a remote island and prepping for a ocean voyage is for sure a challenge. Well done!

And its a good testament for the moorings base there. Really impressive to get all that support after handover. I hope you hosted a few BBQs in return

Sounds totally different from what a buddy experienced at DYC.

Enjoy the new boat!

[Piscis]

Well, there were a couple of DYC boats on the Seychelles. It is hard to tell, but overall they looked less beeing taken care of. But we never had a closer look...

We left the Seychelles as planned on December 10th, arrived Gan/Maledives on December 19th, crew change there, left Gan on December 26, arrived Thailand on January 10th, three days before our ETA.

So overall a one month passage.

Leaving the Seychelles, we had no wind the first 36 hours. Then we enjoyed 8 and a half days of beam reach sailing. Wind 15-25kts, Genoa only we did 6-7kts. Waves from port beam, between 1.5 and 3meters. Wind died the day we arrived in Gan.

We had the strong south equatorial counter current to our favor. About 2 kts. Very nice anchorage in Gan. Easy access to land, calm with just the daily tide current peak. I dived there a couple of times, going out into the lagoon to 20 meters depth. Nice diving and once out in deeper waters, great visibility!

Real Seahawks have been our Agenten. Great support from them. Everything went smooth and crew change was a walk in the park. Well enough time to do formalities and enjoy the Addy City Atoll. Very friendly people, good food and many shops for provisioning and refueling diesel. I tried the Jerrycanwalk to the gas station with 2 30L tanks.... Decided to get the other tanks picked up. Lol. Weather on the first passage was great. No rain, no thunderstorm. Clear blue sky most of the times with great night star watching..... We left Gan on December 26....

[Piscis]

Second part from Gan to Thailand.

First 2-3 days, even better sailing. Same wind conditions but wave from astern, 3-4 meters. Genoa only most of the time. 8kts SOG, sometimes even two digits. Well, the current was strong, about 2-3 kts. Weather was great. Beside a few sprinkles, no rain, no thunderstorm. Sometimes cloudy, but overall good weather conditions. We stayed long close to the equator. But south Sri Lanka we turned NE. We should have stayed longer at the equator.... At day 4 we had dead flat seas, like glass. No wind no swell. Motored with 1 engine, 2000Rpm, 5kts SOG. All ok. Day 5 it got bumpy again. Winds picking up to 20kts on the nose, waves on the nose. Very uncomfortable. Same for the next 2-3 days. Then again flat seas, glass. Nice after the bumpy ride of the past days. Then wind and waves on our nose again. Current changed. Now as well on our nose. Uncomfortable, lol. At that point we had to do a lot of motoring or motorsailing.

One engine died and it took a while to find out what was wrong and how to fix the problem. Did some fuel calculations and found out that we could make it motoring to Thailand if we not run into more counter current. But we would not have much contingency fuel left over. So we decided getting refueling in Sabang, Indonesia. Arrived in Sabang harbor at 4am on January 8th.

With great great help from our Agent Budy in Sabang, we did the refueling, healthchecks, harbormaster and formalities. I can very much recommend him for Sabang Yacht entries! We left Sabang the same day and motored to Phuket. Arrived there save and tired. Lol. The whole passage was not a walk in the park and I am happy I do not have to do it again. But we are here and happy to have our vessel at its berth in KBL Marina.

John

[LAGERTHA]

Hey John...That was quite adventure and accomplishment. Congratulations on your new boat. Enjoy

[SoPacBound]

Congratulations on your new boat! I am thinking of something similar. What were the facilities like at Eden Island, and what were the costs for keeping the boat there?

[Piscis]

Seychelles has a lot of boat industry related businesses. You can get almost everything there.... But prices are very very high. Not only boat parts, but regular supermarket items are expensive. Most items have to be Importated, so understandable.

Mechanics and technicians know there how to repair stuff, not just replace things. Very helpful and nice folks there...

Marina prices are available on the Marina websites. If you buy a boat there and want to negotiate a deal...., it always depends on availability of a berth from the Seller. If the next boats are already there, you might pay full price. If the slips are empty and the next boats are coming in a couple if weeks, you might get a good price. Talk to the Seller....

John

[Piscis]

Genoa only, between Seychelles and Maledives.

Not bad for a heavy production cat with lots of extra weight due to stocking up tools, equipment and lots of Diesel!

[Piscis]

Leaving the Maledives towards Indonesia, the first couple of days we got speed of up to 10 knots, averaging 8 kts, Genoa only. Surfing a lot, big swells from aft.