A Sail of Two Idiots (6 page)

Then we boarded the boat and saw all kinds of water damage inside. The “new” carpet was water-stained, and the kitchen parquet flooring was a little … “soft.” The lights down below wouldn't turn on, so we couldn't see that part. Note to self: don't trust pictures, even if there are over 100 of them; apparently don't trust brokers either. As we left the boat, I complained that it really smelled like diesel, surely that couldn't be normal. I didn't remember smelling that when on other cats. Although concerned that we might have made a big mistake, we still liked the layout and size and were reminded that water damage could be fixed. More importantly, the boat was the right price.

We were supposed to leave the dock at 9 a.m. to head over to the shipyard where the boat would be hauled out of the water, so we got there half an hour
early. Our surveyor (the only guy on our side for this event) was already on the boat and said that when he got there the whole canal was layered with diesel fuel. While Mr. Accountant/Maintenance Guy/Captain was off buying other parts (the anchor windlass—the motor that brings the anchor up/down—wouldn't go in reverse), our surveyor discovered that our bilge was full of diesel (hence the smell I noted the night before) and that the diesel fuel filter bowl was cracked (of course, this boat doesn't use a typical filter setup). The maintenance guy/captain had assumed the nastiness in the canal was from some other loser, but the surveyor discovered that the leak was, in fact, coming from
this
boat (
we
were the losers). It took a while to jury-rig the filter and then to find more fuel for our tanks, so we had to keep calling the boatyard, making sure they could still haul us out. Meanwhile, the surveyor was walking around and noting all kinds of things that were broken, wouldn't turn on, weren't connected, etc. Sure, we could, and probably should, have cut our losses here, but we were assured that these issues were not only minor but normal, and that if we were going to own a boat, we might as well get used to it. We felt we were already committed, didn't have any other boats to look at, and still liked the boat price, so soldiered on.

We finally took off down the canal system (once we got unstuck from the mud—it was now low tide) and had to stop at about four bridges to have them opened (it was kind of cool making huge bridges open up for us). We arrived at the boatyard right in the middle of lunch hour so had to wait a half hour.

We finally got the boat into the harness and had it hauled out (by means of a Travelift) and moved into the yard and were actually quite pleasantly surprised at how the bottom looked considering it had been sitting in the water for over two years. The engine parts we could see, however, looked quite sad. There were quite a few oysters up in the saildrive nooks and crannies, as well as in the crevices of the rudders. So we all took whatever sharp objects we had (credit cards, keys, etc.) and started picking them off.

Mr. Surveyor went around with a hammer knocking all over the boat (they use highly technical tools and methods in this trade), and surprisingly, had little to complain about as far as the structure. (The knocking is one method to determine if the core of the boat is soft—meaning rotten—or has maintained its structural integrity—dry.) The seller's broker got all giddy that the most important part of the boat was sound and immediately forgot about all the other problems. We, of course, did not, and continued to find issues on the boat like standing water behind cabinets (due to leaking windows), missing plywood pieces, and more equipment that we couldn't get working.

So, the boat got put back in the water, we motored back up the canal and tried to head for the ocean so we could take it for a real spin—putting up the sails and everything!! We got about a quarter mile away from the open waters when Mr. Surveyor smelled smoke and went booking toward the engines. Sure enough
one was steaming. Turned out the water pump blew. So now we were down one engine. Drawbridge operators were yelling at us to hurry up under the bridge, we were yelling back that we were disabled. We kept sputtering onward, determined to get out into an open-enough area (we had long given up on trying to get to the ocean) so we could see how the boat sailed.

Eventually the sails went up only to have the wind abruptly die. While the guys were messing with the sails trying to catch any breeze at all, I noticed that one of the cleats was broken (the metal things you tie various lines to) and that a metal pin that should hold the front sail (a jib or genoa—a bigger jib) was missing as well.

We turned the boat around to make one last attempt to get moving (because without the boat moving, we couldn't test the autopilot and other gadgets) and realized that a huuuuuuuuuuuge barge with two tugs was coming at us.

We had to yank down the sails and steer as best we could on one engine to get out of the way. As we pathetically puttered back the way we came, I heard a rattling sound under the boat and asked the surveyor if he thought that was the rudder. Yep, now that we had removed the oysters and were putting more pressure on the rudders, due to the one engine situation, we were hearing loose bearings. Enough. We limped back and tied off to the dock 10 hours after we had left it.

What did the seller's broker say? Well, I know you guys thought that was bad. She, on the other hand, was really happy with the way it went. We just stared at her numbly, nodded, and got in our car. Even the surveyor was so glad to get off the “sinking boat,” as he put it, that he forgot to ask us for payment. Of course, he remedied this later via e-mail.

During this whole nightmare, I had put a call out to our own broker and told him what had been going on and ordered him to get someone in his office to locate some other boats for us to look at (or else). I was really angry because he had told me he had looked at this piece of junk prior to our visit and if he had, we wouldn't have wasted this trip, not to mention the thousand-plus dollars for its survey. He was able to scrounge up three more boats in our size range (not necessarily price range) in the area and we agreed to meet with someone at 9 a.m. the next morning.

The next day, we met up with Broker John and headed to the first boat—we were now in the 38-foot range (the boat-from-hell was 35 feet). The first one was an Admiral and looked and smelled bad. Things were rusty, moldy, etc. It took about two seconds to decide that it wasn't going to work (now this boat was $40,000 more than the one we flew out to look at). Ugh. So we headed to the next one, an Island Spirit (the same kind our broker was sailing up the Intracoastal Waterway). This one was in the $200,000s so we were hoping we didn't like it since we couldn't afford it anyway. Of course, we
did
like it. There was lots of seating inside and out, a heavy-duty bimini (a cover, either fabric or hardtop, to keep the cockpit dry), a roomy interior, and amazing storage. But who cared if we liked it, we couldn't afford it. Next.

The next one was a Fountaine Pajot Athena, which we had seen pictures of online and didn't like, but thought what the heck. Of course, this one was a farther drive out, but we figured we'd let Broker John earn his commission. We got to this fancy schmancy marina, got on the boat, and fell in love. It was clean, smelled great, had two heads (bathrooms) in the center, had a table on the aft deck, lots of room, and looked taken care of. Even better, it was closer to our price range. The boat was owned by a ferry captain from Canada who bought it on the island of St. Vincent and fixed it up to sail to Fort Lauderdale with plans to sell it once he got there (in six months). He had arrived in Florida two weeks prior and the boat had been tied down for hurricane season, cleaned, etc. It was surveyed six months before, so we knew it couldn't have been too bad (although anything could have happened during those last six months).

So, we put in a bid on the Athena. When we told our broker, surveyor, and loan officer that we wanted to switch gears, they all sighed with relief and said they were all feeling much better that we were going for a better boat … why didn't they say something earlier?!

The scary part of this is that despite it all, we are still excited and undeterred (although it was a little dicey there for a little bit). The adventure continues …

Time for the lessons—where to begin?

We surveyed the Athena (which had bumped us up to the $150,000 range) and it came back with the possibility of, I hate to even say it out loud,
delamination
. This is a dirty, dirty word in the fiberglass catamaran world (and would cost us a fortune when we later put our boat up for sale). All older catamarans eventually get bubbles from osmosis (water gets between the outer fiberglass layer and the outer core and causes blisters). Blisters are not necessarily a big deal (they are a pain to fix properly though). But delamination, when water invades the boat's inner core,
is
a big deal.

Delamination is a sign that your boat is literally coming apart at the core, or substructure. (Remember the tapping on the hull in the first survey?) This is very expensive to fix and is costly to even test for, requiring a hole to be drilled and then patched. You do
not
want anyone to use that word around you.

The Athena owner actually agreed to have the suspect area sampled, which is a credit to him, but we were too antsy to wait around. (It later tested negative for delamination, but we were long gone by then.)

Okay, so the Athena was out of the running, and we didn't have any other boat prospects on the horizon. Our house sale was proceeding, and we were getting very nervous. Just as we were wondering if we needed to start looking at apartments, our broker suggested that we make an offer to the owner of the Island Spirit, a boat we had seen and liked in Florida—you know, the really expensive one. We
thought he was nuts, but he said the owner might not want to go through a second hurricane season with the boat on the dock, so an offer couldn't hurt.

Our own research and advice from various brokers taught us that the boats in our price range were junkers, with rare exceptions. We knew we weren't experienced enough to deal with a fixer-upper, so we would have to pay more, maybe a lot more, to buy a small, lightly used catamaran. We'd just have to get a larger loan, or put more money down, or sail for less time, or all of the above. We decided to go for it.

We put in a low bid and, after some haggling, ended up completing our third survey, hoping it would be our last (remember, buyers pay for the surveys). We flew in for this survey and had a blissfully uneventful haulout and test sail. This was the first time I was able to captain the boat (with the real captain/broker standing by), which was scary since we were winding our way through narrow Fort Lauderdale canals and under lifted drawbridges. This boat was wider than the first one (and felt it). Meanwhile, Michael got acquainted with the VHF as he radioed the bridges telling them of our approach and requesting that the bridges be opened. We had a great sail and were impressed by how easy the broker (who owned the same make of boat) made tacking and even close-hauled sailing look (mostly for the benefit of the surveyor, I think). The final survey report still had a surprisingly long list of things to fix, but most of them were recommended and not major, unlike the must-fix list we received for the first catamaran we surveyed.