The yacht buying process...

Despite reading a ton of blogs, forum discussions etc there was very little by way of information to help illustrate the steps or the timeframes involved with buying a yacht / boat. Even less so when dealing abroad.

This is a quick post that may aid a future yacht buyer who is buying a vessel out side of their home country. These timings are my experience. Yours may be different.

1. See the vessel and make an offer (1 day)
2. Negotiate / Offer accepted (1 - 2 days)
3. Find and contact surveyors (2 days)
4. Survey vessel - in and out water and sea trial (1 full day - ours was split over 2 days though)
5. Await survey report (3 days)
6. Review survey and major cost items (1 day)
7. Renegotiate price if any major issues are identified (1 - 2 days)
8. Bill of Sale: This is where it is different for certain countries...For Americans buying from an American and going to register the vessel in the US, I recommend going through some one that does this sort of paperwork as it requires a Lien check and a specific Bill of Sale template and Coast Guard registration etc (to my knowledge)
9. A Lien check is always a good thing to do anyway. In the UK if a yacht has a mortgage it has to be listed on Part 1 of the Small Ships Register. In the US they have it listed with the Coast Guard I believe. Worth you checking with the marina / yard (and even chandleries) to make sure all the bills are up to date too. (3 - 5 days)
10. Once you are confident there are no Lien's you can get a Bill of Sale done. This part was trickier than you might think. There are various templates to chose from. No one template is more legal than the next. The US Coast Guard have a template (which has to be signed in front of a notary), the RYA (Royal Yachting Association) has one which requires a witness and there are a few others online.
11. Drafting up a Bill of Sale (.5 of a day)
12. Signing Bill of Sale (.5 of a day)
13. Transferring finances can be a long winded process due to money laundering regulations and limitations on internet banking transfers, international money transfers etc. A friend recommended using an Foreign Exchange currency service and boy am I glad I did. Transfer cash to FX house in your own country in your own currency (this can take a variable amount of time depending on your daily limits)  (3 days) 
14. FX house will transfer the funds on your say so and in a matter if hours the cash will be in the sellers account. (1 day)
15. Confirm payment with seller and get the keys to the castle!
16. But you are not done! You now need to register the vessel. If you are registering her in the US, as i mentioned before, best to get a professional to do this. I believe that this process can take weeks. In the UK if you have bought the vessel outright, you can register her on the Small Ships Register Part 1 (online) and then you await the delivery of your Certificate of Registration / Documentation (4 weeks to arrive).

You cannot exit / enter a foreign port without the Cert. of Registration (I believe), so you will need to wait until this comes before you are set forth on your adventures. 

What I would do differently next time:

1. Line up the funds with the FX House before we finalise the agreement on price.
2. Create an appendix of the yacht inventory and include it in the Bill of Sale to ensure that the yacht you see is the yacht you get. The seller we had was very honest and had removed all his personal belongings before we viewed, but sometimes a seller will strip a vessel of expensive items like tools and hand held electronics etc etc.   

We have a yacht...

And we shall call her Orion!

Orion, often referred to as The Hunter, is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous, and most recognisable constellations in the night sky. Its name refers to Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. - Wikipedia

When we first saw her online, she ticked almost every box for us. Plus, she is in Grenada!

Something was indeed written in the stars, for in November of 2011, I bought Sally's Christmas present. It was a star in Orion's Belt. The thought process being that as we cruised with nothing but the stars to blanket us, we could look up and try and find her star in one of the most visible constellations. 

It was a heck of a gamble buying one way flights to come to a foreign country to look at a boat, but it was well worth it, for she is beautiful.

She is a 1979 Tartan 37 Centre Board. 

There is all the cruising gear onboard that we could need, including a monitor wind vane for long passages.

What a relief to finally have a boat. She cost us a packet and is slightly older than what we had originally set out to buy, but the previous owner has looked after her incredibly well. Buying it from Mike Young (from Vermont) was a tough exercise as you could just see the emotion in his eyes. He was a VERY reluctant seller. What a great guy too. He spent hours showing us all the additions and tweaks that he had made to the boat. How they all work and what goes where. We are very grateful to him for his help in teaching us all about her.

Although she is 33 years old now, Orion has spent most of her life in fresh water or on the hard. The first 20 years she was on Lake Champlain in Vermont. The sailing season is only about 4 months of the year up there and the rest of the time she was wintered on the hard. 

Mike and his wife Joanne bought the boat in 1996 and got her cruising ready to sail down to the Caribbean in 2000. After sailing her down there they kept her out the water and would use her for 4 / 5 months of the year. As such she has very little wear on her. Hull is in great condition as are the sails.

We are very excited to get aboard and start making her ours. Mike has left us a ton of stuff on board and we need to get our heads around what goes where etc.

We have got some work to do on her, like paint the bottom and sort out a few issues with canvas while she is on the hard, but looking even more forward to getting her onto a mooring and chilling out!

A Buying Methodology...

Consultant speak for "how we intend to buy a boat'!

As we plan on jumping off to the Caribbean and starting small, we have had to take a different approach to sourcing yachts.

• First we sat down and discussed what we THOUGHT we wanted from a yacht based on what we planned to do with it and where we wanted to go. Cruising, not day sailing. Comfort, safety, space, performance, turn-key, etc - We soon found out that there is no such thing as "turn-key" when it comes to things that float...
• Then we identified a specification that met our requirements. Deciding on all those features like size, build, equipment, specification, pedigree etc
• I subscribed to Yachting Monthly Magazine and a number of online newsletters
• We started reading blog postings of Lin and Larry Pardey, Beth and Evan, Morgans Cloud, Mahina.com and other such authors and evangelists
• The Q&A with my parents increased 10 fold as we drilled them for information
• We started looking at boats and models that we knew of. Generally UK or South African designs. This expanded to US and Canadian boats as we realised that most UK / South African designs were mainly in the UK / South Africa. Buying in the US, you are better off looking at US designs
• We viewed a number of yachts in our nearby vicinity (of London / Solent) to learn more about boats, speak to owners, brokers etc. You can read a million books, articles and magazines but there is no substitute for actually stepping on board to take a look first hand. We were surprised just how many yachts looked good online and were far from it in reality!
• Online shortlist - created a Excel spreadsheet of a number of potential yachts in our proposed jump off area. Listing out kit it has and does not have. Pro's and Cons to provide a tool for side by side comparison
• On the list we identified nice to haves vs necessities. A radar is a nice to have in my book not a necessity, whereas a bimini (awning) to keep the sun out the cockpit is a necessity in the tropics. Sure you can get one made, but it will cost you thousands of dollars and weeks to accomplish
• We worked out that a cheaper boat with less spec, will often cost more in the long run than a more expensive vessel with all the kit. This even more so if you consider the time involved. Also remember that kit does not tend to affect the overall resale price of the boat. Just because you added a $5000 dodger does not increase its value by $5k...unfortunately
• Arranged viewings with those on the shortlist. All this involves significant time and expense as we hire cars and trains and aeroplanes to do this...The boat is getting more expensive by the day and we have not even bought one yet...
• We would view each boat and weigh up the options. Every boat has its value. Some however are just not appealing and don't fit the criteria. Others need more than just a polish and would be "project boats" for a long time before we could set off. Too long in some cases
• Every now and then you find the right boat but at the wrong price. As we are in a buyers market (the American economy - and the world economy - is in a poor place at the moment) we have considered a few yachts with prices in excess of our budget. Sometime a seemingly cheeky offer is accepted with the right timing and the right seller
• The most difficult part is realising that whatever you spend on a boat, you will spend an additional 40 - 50% on getting her cruising ready. I never thought about this until this was called out by my parents and seconded by John Neal - from Mahina.com. I started doing the math...no dingy, + $1000. No outboard engine for dingy, + $1000, no self-steering, + $2000 etc etc - THAT affected the boat budget!
• When we found one that we did like on paper, but it was far away, we made a few calls to the owners / brokers to find out all about the boat and what the condition was of the big ticket items Namely - the engine, hull, rig, sails etc. An engine rebuild can costs tens of thousand. Delamination on the deck costs thousands to fix. Chainplates are a mission and costly to replace etc
• If we liked what we heard we would go away and research the make, design. There are loads of forums with information from owners. Also some have websites dedicated to the design. We also emailed owners to ask their advice and what to look out for when considering the boat
• If all was to our liking, we would then make a preliminary offer. "Based on the information you have provided I would like to offer you $X for her...subject to viewing, survey and sea trial"
• If the offer was accepted, we would make our way to the boat and view her
• We would have a full survey done and would do this every time from now on. Preferably with the owner present for both the out the water survey and the sea trial. Together we can identify and discuss in an open forum any issues with the boat and it adds a bit of realism to the deal
• If there are any major issues that will require additional capital that you have not budgeted for, negotiate with the seller on price

The Spice Island

Saturday early morning we are asleep on the blow up bed in our friend's apartment in Florida, happily having our 10 hour a night beauty sleep, thinking we were off to St Augustine that day to do a second viewing on a boat when the next phone call changed all plans. "Good morning Dylan, Mike here, my boat you were interested in a couple of weeks ago is back on the market". Not one for early mornings, this was a rare occasion when I shot out of bed and listened intently.

Turned out our first choice in boat that had disappeared from our grasp with a quicker offer when we first started our boat hunt had fallen through with the current buyer and the owner was offering us a chance to put in an offer. One small problem...the boat was in Grenada and we were in Miami. Unfazed by this, we put the phone down on Mike and an hour later we had booked ourselves onto flights the same afternoon, leaving Miami and flying to Grenada via Trinidad arriving at the boat yard by early Sunday morning...24 hours from now.

A hasty exit from our friend's apartment and a trip to Enterprise to deposit our hire car, we flew 2 1/2 hours to Trinidad and prepared for a 10 hour layover. Unable to find any accommodation near the airport in Trinidad we decided to kip at the airport. Eager to find a spot suitable for snoozing we had a quick drink and headed straight through to departures to find that there was no food vendors in sight. O well, having lived on an american diet we didn't really miss the food but what we did miss was the sleep. Our luggage had been checked through to Grenada and we had but hand luggage with us. Wearing appropriate Caribbean attire, we thought we were suitably prepared for the climate. However the air conditioning made our old flat in Peabody seem like the tropics, we shivered our way to 5:45am when our 20 minute flight to Grenada left.

Arriving in Grenada 'international' airport, we were met with 85 degree heat and high humidity...my favourite type of weather. With a huge smile on my face, we made our way to the only choice in breakfast where I munched on corned beef, bread and salad at 6:30am and Dylan chose the salt fish. Yum. Having made a last minute decision to go to Grenada, we had no accommodation booked and so rocked up at the closest hotel, woke the owner up (since found that no Grenadians are out and about on a Sunday morning) and booked a room for the night before moving to a more budget self contained apartment for the remainder of our stay.

Up till now we had only seen photos of this boat as well as a detailed specification so it was a big risk to travel to a small island in the hope that this yacht was the one for us. We had invested airfares, accommodation and potentially losing another boat to pursue this one... Luckily we were not disappointed, she is a beautiful boat and we hope that within the next week she shall be ours.

Boat aside we set about enjoying the island, and wow, what an island. We had done our homework before we arrived reading multiple cruising guides and blogs but nothing prepares you for the real deal. A silent nation of people they don't seem to greet each other but communicate in smiles, grunts and hand signals. Boy do they love the horn...and music! Us tourists get around the island by relying on the buses, easily identifiable by looking out for any number plate starting with a 'H'. EC$2.50 (50p) to wherever you want to go we climb aboard the minibuses, crammed in like sardines and bounce along the road listening to ear deafening reggae music which is practically nonsensical to the untrained ear (but is apparently English!) until we spot our destination and a tap on the roof brings the bus to an abrupt holt and we are bustled on our merry way. We are yet to wait more than 30 seconds for a bus to come by.

Living near Prickly Bay (probably one of the prettiest anchorages on the island), it is a short bus ride to the most amazing beach in Grand Anse. Clear gin blue waters and a white beach that stretches right around the bay this is the stuff for postcards. Without the tacky sea fronts you see in so many holiday destinations, there are no shops /casinos / seagulls/ beach clubs in sight. We lay there uninterrupted for hours, no one trying to lay their towel right on top of us, no squealing children or people trying to sell us fake sunglasses...heaven. That's Dylan in the photo below trying to re-enact his younger years of being a lifeguard:

Yesterday we decided to venture into the capital of St George. Whilst shading from the raging midday sun we looked out over the bay at the chocolate box houses against a lush green backdrop and breathed in the smells of spices as the local lady next to us sold her wares. School children coming back from sports day were lead single file around the water with impeccable manners (see photo below). We went to BB's Crabback recommended as a place to go to eat traditional Caribbean food. Looking out over the marina to the multi million dollar boats moored up, I ate kingfish, fried plantain, rice and beans and dylan had the same but with mahi mahi, delicious. This evening we tried to repeat the dish but with chicken, think we need a lot more practice!

Sick of being a brunette I have purchased blonde hair dye and shall attempt a home kit Grenadian style tomorrow (yes I must be desperate).

My christmas present from Dylan was a star named after me in Orion's belt...with this boat sharing the same name, hopefully the next post shall be about being new boat owners (it is a sign)!!

America...F@£$ YEAH

Excuse the profanity in the title. It comes from the infamous puppet parody "Team America".

Although we have to admit, America has it pretty jacked up in some respects!

• 6 lane highways (in 1 direction!)
• Fridges with ice and water filters (we don't have those in our meagre sized kitchens in the UK!)
• With the fridge comes apartments that are big enough to house said appliances. We have been to two Floridians houses / apartments and they suitably large!
• Free WiFi is available pretty much everywhere. Every fast food joint or motel has it. There is no "fill out all your life details" to access it either!
• Toll by plate - You drive on a toll, it bills you for the privilege. No wait in a queue to pay a dollar. Very streamline!
• Fuel is way cheaper here. @ $3.69 per gallon it works out to around $1 per litre or £0.65 per litre!
• Car rental is cheap too! We pay about $26 per day. HOWEVER, you have to pay mandatory insurance on top of that at a further $30 per day for basic. It all works out not so cheap as you have to have a car here to get around.

But not in others!

• Drive through Starbucks, pharmacy, ATM, fast food etc - For the incredibly lazy.
• Fast food joints at every exit off the highway. Eating a healthy meal on the road is practically impossible so we try buy healthy snacks from Walmart etc
• Not pedestrian friendly. This is a car culture and although drivers are very respectful of pedestrians and let them have loads of space to cross roads etc, the sidewalks are not conducive to "leggin' it" in cities
• 3G access on mobile phone contracts is not like the UK. There is a serious monopoly on smartphones and usage over here. But, we got a "pay as you go deal" that works out at $2 per day for unlimited local calls to landlines and mobiles

Florida Road Trip

Standing at the carousel quietly mocking the Justin Bieber lookalike and old dears with toy boys at their side, we were remembering all the stories we had heard of baggage going missing when using interconnecting flights in the US. Cursing the fact I hadn't slipped a bikini into my hand luggage 'just in case' I was very relieved to see our North Face and Helly Hansen luggage pushing out of the plastic slats towards us.

Hauling the heavy bags onto our backs, we set off in search of the car rental area - what turned out to be a total MISSION away using bouncy travelators to speed up the route. Our old faithfuls Enterprise were our company of choice and never failing to please they gave us a free upgrade to a Dodge Avenger - butch name, butch car! As I quickly realised, everything in the US is big and I was very glad we had already decided that Dylan would do all the driving, considerably bigger than the Daewoo Matiz (0.8) that I was used to driving back home. Things got off to an interesting start when we attempted to navigate the car park in the opposite direction to the one way system, all smiles and waves we did a quick u turn and sped out into the night before any further embarrassment was caused.

Continuous chanting of 'driving on the right' got us to Ft Lauderdale in one piece, unfortunately Dylan only figured out how to use cruise control 4 days into driving having already clocked up 900 miles.

The next 3 days were a blur of yacht viewings, communication with brokers and not so cheap motels. In Fort Lauderdale we encountered Pepper, an over the top American yacht broker with whiter than white teeth who had previously sold a boat to Tom Cunliffe (Dylan's hero). Disappointed by the boats in this area, we headed up to Fort Pierce and checked into a truckers motel where their idea of a 'continental breakfast' was a honey bun in a vacuum sealed plastic packet with a filter coffee the colour of dishwasher, we soon learned not to bother getting up early to take advantage of the free food on offer!

Up till now we had made do with our UK phones on pay as you go but this was proving costly when ringing in the US. Sprint (an unknown company to us) was the first phone shop we came across and we purchased a 'boost' package which gave us a very simple phone and then $2 a day from then on as long as we want to use it for giving us unlimited minutes to anywhere in the US.

From Fort Pearce we headed to St Augustine and as we were rounding the bend near another boat yard that could potentially have our ideal yacht...the cop car behind us started flashing his lights. Pulling over we start to rack our brains for what we could have done wrong, driving licence and rental agreement at the ready, we wind down the window, our eyes in a direct line to his very shiny belt complete with taser gun. Turns out we rolled at a stop sign, knuckles rapped we got away with a warning and went on our way - from then on Dylan was like a person who was on his driving test, all signs and speed limits strictly adhered to!

Having clocked up so many miles of driving on the interstates (although quick, there is nothing much to see), we went to check out the famous Daytona and Flagler beach on the A1A highway. WOW what a view, with stretches of ocean or intracoastal highway to see, we crawled at a snails pace as we oohed and aaaahed our way south. The property in the area was a sight to be seen, mostly on stilts they offered uninterrupted views of the ocean, real estate to aspire towards!

Having taken a sharp right from Daytona Beach we headed to St Petersburg to view boats on the west coast and then made our way back to Miami via the Everglades on the southern tip of Florida.  Having no choice but to watch Swamp Monsters when Dylan was in charge of the remote, I had a new respect for their profession, seeing stereotypical swamp boats driving around the mangroves and thinking of all the crocodiles that could be lurking in the greenery!

Back in Miami we stayed with a friend of Dylan's right near the beach. Alex (an ex work colleague of Dylan's) invited us to a Puerto Rican BBQ and it was here that we got our first lesson in Caribbean rum. Having only tasted the western version of rum such as Malibu, Captain Morgans and Bacardi, it was an eye opener to see, smell and taste the bottles and bottles of home made rum with different fermenting fruit inside. What friendly, hospitable people and it only put more pressure on us to get this boat found, bought and sailed to the Caribbean ASAP!

No trip to Florida is complete without visiting the Keys so it was on day 2 that we decided to day trip to Key West. Five hours worth of driving one way was a little steep but totally worth it. With 120 miles of Overseas Highway to travel on and 42 bridges to cross, it made for a fantastic drive. At some points it feels like you are driving on water with only ocean on both sides of you and not a car in sight.

Pelicans are sat staring at you from the sides of the road and almost every town has a dive school, fishing shop and seafood restaurant specialising in their local crab (stoned crab). Key West was our destination and once we had mastered the horrific one way system in the town (seeing a pattern here?) we headed to Fort Zachary Taylor Park. A magnificent white coral beach surrounded by palm trees where we soaked up the sunshine before making the 5 hour ride back to Miami.

Dylan's birthday today as I write and his only birthday request was to have a lie in and go for a walk along the beach. Man of simple needs he didn't even want a present and I suppose why would you, having not worked for a month now and with 11 more months of Caribbean sailing in front of us can life really get much better than this?!

Welcome to Miami

Two ferries, four bus rides, a dodgy motel and 2 flights later we have made it to Miami. On our cruising budget we have ruled out any lavish expense (this includes eating out) and as such, the 36 hour option to take us from Salt Spring Island on the west coast of Canada to Miami on the south east coast of the US was the appropriate choice for our situation.

To start our journey, Gem and I bundled into the back seat of their Honda with our suitcases taking up another seat, bursting with sailing gear and xmas goodies. Alright for dog who had the run of the boot laughing at us peculiar humans bunched together! After a short 30 minute ferry ride to Vancouver Island we even managed to squeeze in 3 Canadian Sailcraft 36 boat viewings in Sidney prior to heading to the mainland.

It all started to get a little tedious when on the bus from Vancouver to Seattle. What should have been a 2hr 40 journey ended up being a 5 hour slog through the US border control who treated us as if we were blatant terrorists. Being a Brit means that I have never been subjected to the third degree when going through passport control. Oblivious to the troubles other nationalities have, I breeze through with little questions and wonder what all the fuss is about. With the tables now turned, Dylan assures me that it is way worse at Heathrow with him using an indefinite leave to remain visa in his Canadian passport yet still subjected to a thorough dressing down every time he dares enter and exit the country. Managing to control my outrage at the treatment the border control was subjecting us to, we re-board the bus and head on to Seattle. Just as well we refused the mincemeat and sourdough starter jars that Dylan's Mum had made for us!

With our flight out of Seattle not until 7:25am the next day, we had pre-booked into a Travelodge. Upon arrival I was instantly reminded of a motel used in the murder scenes of Dexter. Apart from our room sounding like it was located in the middle of a race track, I barely slept a wink as I convinced myself the home boys playing latino music full blast at 1am were going to break into our room, going through various ways I could tackle them in self defence. OK so we did only pay $46 for the privilege of having a snooze but at the risk of sounding twice my age – I just wanted a good kip with the little hours we did have available!

With at least a week planned in Florida to complete our shortlist, I'm sure we shall be repeating that scenario a fair few more times although lesson learned – check out the neighbourhood before booking.

Next mission – buy a US sim so we don't pay through the nose when contacting brokers and get cracking on our boat hunting.