Our Dream for Retirement

Buying a boat during a pandemic

Navigating the purchase of a large vessel during a pandemic is not for the faint of heart.  In this segment, we talk about navigating the logistics of taking delivery on a vessel that you cannot see or sail before you buy it.  While there are key people that have direct responsibilities, there are also many others whose actions / decisions / choices can impact your delivery immensely.  Each of the parts must be completed in order to take ownership; but the pandemic prevented a lot of “normal” transactions from happening.  Remaining calm and patient is the only alternative!

Negotiation and Offer

Our offer was put in for a 2015 Leopard 39 over a year ago in September 2019, after several weeks of negotiation.  The boat, coming out of a Moorings charter operation seemed an economical way to get a fairly new boat and the Moorings Company was known for its rigorous attention to details as it phases out a vessel.  Our first contact is Bill Regan, a seasoned sales person in Clearwater.  

Bill Regan

Moorings

The process to get to closing

After we walked through the bidding process, and the offer was accepted, Carlos set up a surveyor to do a thorough examination of the vessel before closing and began to identify funding and insurance companies. Similar to purchasing a home, several parties need to be in agreement on its condition, insurability, safety and sea-worthiness of the vessel.

Great!  We now had an anticipated delivery date in sight and we started the backend work on insurance and funding.  

Schedule Snafu’s

Since we weren't scheduled to pick up for a couple of months, the boat inspection and repair schedule got low priority from the boatyard management.  First, it slipped a couple days, then a week, then two and after that it took a nosedive. Typically, if work was not outlined to start by Tuesday, likely there would be no work during that week.   No progress was made on the vessel for over 3 months!  Meanwhile, we booked flights twice to the pickup location in BVI only to have to cancel and pay a fee. Needless to say, high frustration was the feeling around our house.  

Work stoppage due to COVID

Some work began in December, but it was still a low priority.  The management at the boatyard changed and we started working with Richard Vass.   Then, COVID hit.  BVI got totally shut down, leaving no work done on the vessel for another 6 weeks.  When the work finally restarted, it was again slow due to the restrictions put in place for protecting the workers. Regular calls to the maintenance manager do not yield any progress - his hands are tied by the number of workers that can legally work together on the boat.  

Acceptance plans change due to surveyor identified problems

Finally in May of 2020, it was ready for our surveyor to come and make the inspection.  After the vessel was surveyed, the next process was to fix the list of items that the surveyor found unacceptable.  Delays piled on due to high moisture readings, (which can be an indication of leaks in the boat), a faulty engine, a misapplication of treading in the deck fiberglass and unacceptable bottom painting.  The surveyor, Bill, was our champion with the Moorings Phase Out process.  Since we couldn’t be on site, he represented us and was our eyes on the condition of the boat.  He went back several times and instructed them to pull the boat out, make checks, put the boat in, do a sea trial, and pull the boat out again to be sure the repairs were correct, etc.

Barriers to obtaining insurance

This work took the timeline into the hurricane season, and there was no way we were going to obtain insurance until November.   Another stressful week when you may ask yourself - why are we buying this boat anyway????  It has been over a year and we are still awaiting the release of our boat.  Insurance is extremely hard to get, with every company worrying about the frequency and strength of the past two seasons. We are frantic to get insurance and funding squared so we can close as soon as possible in the month of November and pick up our boat!!  We worked heavily with insurance broker Liz and financier Bobby from Essex.  Some of the stipulations include - no travel to Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, or Columbia;  the vessel must be north of Virginia by June, cannot travel south of Virginia until after November; the vessel is not allowed to make a transAtlantic crossing.  And let’s not even talk about the extremely high premium since the boat was not located in the US mainland.  But nothing can really happen until the surveyor is finished and it is accepted by us.

Carlos spends a lot of time on the phone with boat maintenance, boat broker, boat insurance, boat surveyors and boat financiers…..our kitchen table was his desk!

Good to Go!

We finally got the OK from the surveyor, who actually was in communication with the boat manufacturers in South Africa to clear up some issues.  We got concessions on the price in order to help defray the cost of cancelled flights and a used dinghy help seal the deal.

Bubista on lifts! 

Bubista on lifts!  The original name was “Mai Pen Rai” which means “No worry” in Thai.

Grateful for the support of so many

Wow, a lot to consider and make decisions on, so far away in RI and not able to physically get to the boat presented a big challenge to taking delivery. Without the help of these folks, we would had never completed the sale in a timely manner. Timing was critical for financing if we couldn’t get closure before our retirement or inability to obtain insurance.  This is where our broker, Bill, became most helpful, providing contacts and working with the maintenance staff to be sure our urgency was communicated to keep the timelines.

The boat is ready - are we?

As we started to get close to a release date, our thoughts turned to logistics of our own needs.  Where would we stay?  How would we get the boat to us?   In the next blog, we are planning for the first leg of our delivery trip starting with taking a flight to Saint Thomas, USVI in the middle of the pandemic.