Drumroll Please! Part 1…..

Buying a yacht is a pretty intense business.   First there is the inspection. Then there is looking at a bunch of other yachts to help you decide that, yes, this is the boat that ticks many of your boxes.  Because what is abundantly clear is that no boat is ever likely to have 100% of what you desire.  Particularly when your budget doesn’t allow for a new boat.  Even then people would argue that there is no such thing as a perfect boat.

So, you are clear on your choice.  Then you make an offer and bite your fingernails whilst the broker discusses that with the owner. You negotiate, you agree and then sign a contract.  The contract says that you agree in principle to this boat subject to a marine survey (kinda like a house inspection but with about 1000 times more detail).  You then choose a surveyor and see when he is available.  Soon as possible please! Once he has a day locked in the broker and owner race around to sort out with the marina when the boat will be pulled out of the water. Favours are called in with the travel lift operator to pull the boat out at the best available time.  Cath and Rick stump up the exorbitant fee for hauling the boat out. The surveyor will come early on the day in question and start looking into every nook and cranny inside the boat.  His expertise is in EVERYTHING.  He pulls up floors and disappears into the engine room.  He climbs the mast to check the rigging and the instruments.  It takes hours.  Then he declares it time for a sea trial where the sails are shaken out, the engine is tested properly whilst underway, the bow thruster is tested, winches, steering, instrumentation. Then at the whim of the surly travel lift operator (favours didn’t quite work apparently) the boat is hauled out of the water, her bum is pressure washed over a giant sump then she is moved to a hard stand area while the surveyor checks out everything below the waterline. Then it’s dark. So he comes back the next day to finish it off. Phew. This guy is thorough!

Then we sweat. And sweat. And sweat on whether he is going to find something that stops us from buying this boat that we are progressively and inexorably falling in love with. 5 days he tells us for a fast turn-around of the survey. But the guy is aware that we are waiting (and sweating) and puts us out of our misery by getting it back to us in 3 days.  What a legend.