Read Agile Boat Buying: Part I here.
After allowing ourselves a few hours to wallow in our misery, we woke up Friday morning and brushed ourselves off and got back to boat buying. Doug spent the morning going through boat listings, searching for Hunter models that would work for us and in our price range.
Here is where I tell you to be persistent and not to give up or settle for something else.
After spending hours staring at a computer screen, Doug found a listing for a 1998 Hunter 410 in Florida that seemed to meet our requirements. One downside: it had seen some hurricane damage and been repaired. Ironically enough, the damage happened at Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda where we had taken our sailing lessons the summer before. Their sailboat was even on the same dock on which the boat we used for our lessons was berthed. Small world!
Doug left a message for the seller, and they called us back that evening. A lengthy discussion determined that this boat was a real possibility. There were some other people sniffing around and wanting to take a look so we put in an offer, pending our visual inspection and a complete survey. We told them we were on our way and we would be in the area in a couple of days to take a look for ourselves.
Back into the car we all went. This time, however, is a little different than our previous trip down South. We decided that we would take everything we would need to survive for the next 3 months. If this boat didn’t work out, we would continue looking until we found one. We did make one rule: Everything we were going to take had to fit into the Escape. A couple compromises had to be made, but we got it all in and the dogs had an elevated place to lay and watch the world go by.
Destination: Titusville, FL / Kennedy Point Yacht Club and Marina
Two exhausting days later and 19 hours of driving, we arrived in Florida and checked into the Home2 Suites in Melbourne. The dogs have adjusted quite well to the hotel scene and eagerly waited for us to get their “nest” set up.
Monday morning, we logged a few work hours and set out for Kennedy Point Yacht Club and Marina to get our eyes on the Granite Chief.
(The boat is named after Granite Chief, a mountain in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe. The current owners are from Nevada in case you were wondering where her name came from.)
We met the owners, Kristin and Greg, a young couple who decided they wanted to quit their jobs and live on a sailboat for a year. Now it was time for them to return to land life and get paying jobs and move on to their next adventure. Doug did his usual poking around and looking into all the tight spaces and pushing all the buttons and asking all the questions and what not. I got a feel for the interior and thought about working space, cooking space, lounging space, storage space and dog space.
While we are on the topic of space, did I mention that you can see the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pads at Kennedy Space Center from the boat slip? It has been the garage for countless NASA rockets including the Saturn IB, Saturn V and Space Shuttles. Cause you can. It’s right there. How freaking cool is that???
Doug called SunCoast to get a recommendation for a surveyor on this side of the state and was told that Tom would be happy to make the drive over for this inspection as well. The survey was set for the coming Friday at 9 AM. What to do in the meantime? Off to the dog beach, of course!
Sorry, no pictures of this excursion. It wasn’t a total disaster but there were a ton of dogs at this dog beach and despite the rules stating that dogs must be leashed, most weren’t. This didn’t really bother us as the dogs were well behaved but they wanted to say “Hello, friend!” to Crew and Maizey and welcome them to the beach but poor Crew just isn’t good at that and did not appreciate the stranger dogs just coming right up to him. Most of the dog owners were understanding and called their dogs back. Maizey and Crew got lots of praise and treats when they did eventually calm down.
Finally, Friday arrived and we set off for the marina at 8 AM. Tom (the surveyor) arrived promptly at 9 and we got underway. I will spare you the boring details but it was a nice trip to the marina where they would haul the boat out to take a look at the belly of the beast. We were most concerned with any damage that had happened to the keel during the hurricane in Punta Gorda the year before. Our fears were put to rest when Tom told us the one crack that we did see was just the paint and nothing that was cause for concern. Back in the water and another fantastic trip back to Kennedy Point. The survey finished with only minor things that would need taken care of.
Now it is decision time. Is this our boat? Have we find the right one?
