In the water....

It is Saturday night in St Petersburg, Florida and we are in Harborage Marina for our first night on the boat.

So yes!! the boat is finally in the water. The boat was splashed on Thursday afternoon, with some short delay.

I hope we will never need to go to this yard again. At the end, it took over two months to complete what was estimated to be a three weeks job, and almost 3 times the cost.

On the other hand - our agents are magic.

Our agents came along, and again as I said before, I have to say that having a good agent worth everything.

Jeff and Jean from Two Can Sail (twocansail.com) are amazing. They helped us buying the boat, and they continue to help us in every step of the process.

We splashed the boat, and Jean and Jeff worked with us, showing us how to operate the boat, helped us with the docking process, and then helped us (or actually, they did the work and we helped them) taking the sails down for future work. 

Than - cleaning. For the last two days, we are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and... you are correct - cleaning.

We also had our engine mechanic coming as we would like to update, replace and correct every hose on our engines, and bring all three of them to like new status.

He will be again next week, which mean that I will spend quality time learning all that I can about how to fix, correct and trouble shoot (in reverse order) the engines on the boat.

Tonight, after bringing some (very few things from our storage unit), we are finally staying on the boat.

We learned how to operate the galley (kitchen), the water system, t fridge and freezer, the air condition (!!) and the lights.

It is after 8 PM, and Hani is working hard to find the places on the boat. Where to hang cloths, where to put the food, and all the other small things that makes life possible.

And the weather - it is not Minnesota, but we are expecting strong winds tonight, so we put extra lines to make sure that we stay connected to the dock in 30 to 40 knots.

That's all for today - stay tune to work progress.

In the yard.....

In the yard, a never ending story...

We thought that today (January, 14, 2019) will be the last day in the yard, I mean they yard told us last week that tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15, the boat will be back in the water..

Well, I was wrong (again). At noon today, after a visit in the morning to the yard, I found out that the boat is now scheduled for Thursday (January 17).
OK, lets rewind...

The boat went to the yard to be worked on in the first week of November (2018). The items to be worked on, were very limited.
Bottom paint; some fiberglass work; new seal in one of the sail drives; new sanitary (head) hoses; and a Dyna plate. Basically, only items that the boat needs to be worked on while out of the water.
We even got an estimate of how much it will cost.

From that day on - surprise after surprise. Not that new issues were found (except one), but as to, how long the work takes and how many delays in actually doing the work and....and... and ....
The gap between estimated cost and actual cost.

In the beginning (being Minnesota nice)  we tried not to call / email the yard every day. I mean they are working on my boat right? They know that it needs to be in the water on the first week of December (2018, yes 2018), right?

Very quickly we learned that other boats are at higher priority, especially those owners that wanted the boats in the water for the holidays.

We where in MN, far away, (and as the saying goes - far from the eye, far from the heart). So, we started calling  / emailing every day.
And ... we also heard that the weather is not good, the parts are missing, the....
You call and you hear - we are working, it is moving ahead, almost done, for sure next week,,, next week,,, next week...

Not all bad, there are some good news too. We got approval from the yard, and we managed to put the boat new name on it.

And last week, we manage to replace the dinghy too. That was great. To change the dinghy while the boat is in the yard is much easier than to change it when the boat is in the water. The yard was very helpful in taking our dinghy, and very quickly replace it with the original that was on the boat.

So now, with a cost (still not final) that is close to three (yes three) times the original estimate, we are waiting for Thursday with hope that our boat will finally be in the water  - Stay tuned

Getting the boat - Inspections, etc....

So we got the boat (Honey, we bought a boat)- what's next...

First schedule a survey. This is were I am going to start and keep on saying, and saying, and saying - our agent is a star!!
With out her, life would have looked much different.
She helped us every step on the way. She recommended the surveyor(s), schedule the time, place etc.
First a place - to haul-out the boat with 21' beam, you need a yard that have a lift for that.
And a yard that have the time open to do the job, when you want to to the job.

 And, it has to be close enough for the seller to bring the boat.
So, about two weeks after we bought the boat, our agent schedule the survey. We book three surveys. One overall surveyor, that look at every part of the boat, including electronics, electrical, standards, engines, fittings, hoses, connections, rigging, structure, fiberglass etc. One surveyor for the ringing and one for the engines. It is not a new boat, and we wanted to be sure that it is in a condition that we can accept.
The survey includes a sea trial too.
It was a long day, that started (before 8 AM) with the boat inspected in the water in the yard, then hauled out for bottom inspection, back into the water for the sea trial.
The sea trial also included detail engines inspection, for different RPM and speed, including all other readings. It was over just after 5 PM.
A few days later we got the 3 reports, and estimates on what it will take to fix issues etc.
We gave an amended offer, and it was accepted...
Wow, now what. We basically bought the and - what do we do next? - We need a marina to place the boat, find a yard to work and fix the issues we need fixing, and .... get an insurance..
I will start with the insurance - it is hard and yes, unbelievable hard to find a reasonably priced insurance for the first year (as we just bought this boat, in Florida).  Insurance companies are not keen to allow sail-boaters like us to stay on the boat. And the price... don't even ask.

 You are asked to provide your sailing resume, experience, history, survey report, etc. They are also requiring a commitment to fix item discovered in the survey, I think they only forgot to ask for my shoe size. 

Long story short - after almost 3 weeks of calling, talking and filling paperwork, we got an insurance, that even-thou was not too (!!) cheep, was good enough in coverage for where we wanted to sail.
Oh yes, the insurance company tells you where you can go, and when to to go.
We learned that there are very few underwriters that will insure boat that do more than just coastal sailing. And very soon, every new insurance agent we called was talking to the same underwriters. It was for us, "go coastal, or go postal"...

By now, everything was lining up for closing day, that means, signing the papers (remotely), paying for the boat, and.... Yes I forgot to mention, the boat was in Punta Gorda, and the Marina we manage to secure and the yard are in St. Petersburg. We had, once we had possession on the boat (i.e. closing day), to move the boat from the seller's place to our place.
We were in Minnesota and the boat was in Florida, and I was still working. Again, our agent came to the rescue and found a captain that can move the boat.

A few days after closing on the boat, the captain took the boat and two days later it was in the yard ready to be pulled out and worked on -  and that will be the next blog..

Finding the (right) boat for us

Full disclosure - when we lived in South Africa we almost bought a Dean 400 catamaran.
we visited the factory, looked at the boat, took one for a ride, but ended in the US and bought power boat (yes we are sorry, but on the Mississippi river, power boat was more logical than a catamaran).

We were boating in Minnesota, and members of the US Sail and Power Squadrons. In one of our visits to the Great Lakes we saw a catamaran in one of the marinas. My wife said, it will be a great idea to sail one, before the day was over, I booked a week charter in the Florida Keys. The first tile in our road to our boat was in place. (sea worthiness, capacity, water, fuel, space, etc..)

In 2017 we visited two boat shows, in Miami and in Annapolis,. We talked with different agents, looked at boats, added what we heard to what we knew before, experienced in charters, read, etc. and created a list of what we would like the boat to have (or able to have).

We plan to live on the boat - it is going to be our floating home; We plan to take it places across oceans. It had to be able to support us, and we were not planing to be in marinas (most of the time).

So armed  with what we want / need on the boat, with set of priorities, we start researching. Looking at available boats, looking at timing, and waiting for our house to be sold.

The day we sold our house, we contacted our agents with a message - we need a boat.
After a few weeks of exchanging emails, calling on the phone and scheduling, our agent set for us a list of boats to see, in marinas in GA, and FL (both coasts).

In mid September we drove from MN to view 11 boats that our agent schedule for us.
We saw Leopard, Lagoons, African Cat, some others and 3 Mantas.
We learned that we we saw on the websites in most cases does reflect the boat it self. We learned that if you pay close attention even the name in the photos does not match the name of the advertised boat. Numbers to not match, etc etc etc.
One of the best things that happened to us while looking at those boats is the fact that our agent came with us. It was extremely helpful. showing us at what to look and what not, how to evaluate what we see and how to understand its impact vs. our needs.

That learning was a hard one. But, we had a great agent, we have been advised even before we had the final list too look at, as to what is real and what is not, so at the end of the day







the schedule we had was a good one, with some promises.

After seeing many boats for 3 days, we had two at the top of list. A 2001 Leopard 38 and a 1999 Manta 40. So, we drove back to GA to see the Leopard again.

We looked at it again, compare notes, and called our agent - we decided to go on the 1999 Manta 40.
We sent an offer while driving back home to MN.

By the time we got home we had an accepted offer.

Next step was to schedule inspection, and insurance, and marina and.... - but this will be in the next blog

Sizing Down - step one in a long journey

We use to live in a 3300 sqr/ft house.
We traveled the world and collected many things over the years. 
We lived in three different continents through the years, and now we have decided to move to a boat. We knew what (more or less) we will be able to buy - size wise; so we had to do a MAJOR (!!) downsizing.
For those which are collectors like us, and had to downsize, this may sound familiar. The kids, they don't want any of your "old stuff" - we call them antiques, they call it junk.
We had to decide what do, what to take with us, and then what to do with the rest. Oh and I forgot to mention that originally we thought we will take two to three years to sell our "stuff", we change our plans - our countdown has started and it was less than a year.

First - we need to sell our house.
That means - fixing, cleaning, staging (yes we did stage the house after awhile), removing personal items, replacing carpets in the basement, painting our bedroom with what we been told - current colors. Bear in mind that we had fully remodeled our house in 2011 - so everything was relatively new, fresh and current.
Yes, we did have many things to remove (we are collectors). We have over the years, live in 3 different continents and collected many memories and possessions; now it was time to remove them.

So in January 2018 we rented a storage unit. We took there everything we thought we will take to our new boat, and things that right now had to be removed from the house.
And in the mean time, we took photos of what we thought we can sell quickly and posted them on Let-go, Facebook, etc. etc.

We learned very quickly that life don't work according to our plans or timeline, things sold too slowly.
So we start donating, and giving away things.
And giving more things away, and more, and more.
For about two moths, every week this was the regular view in our drive way.
Finally we sold our house, and then we did a garage sale. (over 2 weeks.....)

It was very hard. Our great neighbors helped us so did some of our friends. Without them, we will be still clearing our house.

We started the house selling / downsizing / moving out, in November 2017. We sold and closed on our house in October 2018.
We had many collections, paintings, piano, rugs, dishes, etc. No we have left with very little (still to many things).
Our next blog will be on the process we went through to find our boat.