Category: purchasing

We got our first insurance quote back in. It is about twice the amount I was hoping for, but at least we know that we can get insurance. That’s a load off my mind. Really, the only concern left is whether the U.S. will let me in. They should. I’m a U.S. citizen, but these things are never guaranteed.

I’m doing all that I can to prepare for it. This past Friday I received my first shot of the two part Astra-Zeneca vaccine. I’ve paid for my COVID test to take within 3 days before entering the U.S., and I’m isolating myself as much as I possibly can right now.

Unfortunately, the COVID test requires a Doctor’s requisition even though I’m paying for it out of pocket — and my doctor wants to talk to me beforehand. Hopefully this is pro-for a stuff.

The amount of “stuff” I’ll be bringing aboard is growing daily. Normally I wouldn’t have so much even for an extended cruise, but since I’m there to work on the boat, and I can’t come home if I need something, it feels like I’m moving almost everything I own there.

Yesterday we checked with the banks to see how long it takes to move money from my bank to the bank where funds will be disbursed, sort of like escrow. My bank can do the transfer in a few hours. Unfortunately, Bank of Montreal says that it can take them 7 days to process it at their end. It was an interesting conversation that went something like this:

Me: 7 days? Even with a bank draft?

Them: yes, it can take us 7 days.

Me: but I thought a bank draft was the same as cash.

Them: it is.

So, if it’s the same as cash, doesn’t that mean it is treated the same way? So if I showed up with the same amount in bills, it might take as long as 7 days to credit their account? That’s crazy.

Anne, the wonderful organized person that she is, has about 40 million lists going. We have a list for each day. We have a list of tasks to do now. We have a list of tasks to do later. We have lists of things to buy, one list per store/vendor/supplier. Somewhere, I’m sure, she has a list of the lists that we have.

Right now I’m concentrating on what do I need in order to safely bring the boat from where she is to our berth where I’ll be able to work on her, plus the things I’ll need to live on her until the sooner of:

• All the tasks are complete
• I can’t go any further on the tasks due to a lack of skill/tools/knowledge on my part
• they’ll let me shuttle back and forth across the international border
• the marina kicks me out

That means thinking almost like I’m planning a long-distance cruise. What clothes do I want? How do I store them? Food and water. What tools do I bring? What supplies of parts? Bedding? Transportation? Where does this stuff get stowed?

Admittedly, that’s a small part of a long-distance cruise because I’ll be tied up in a marina and have access to thing slike grocery stores, take-out food, a boat yard, a chandlery, and even delivery service from amazon, west marine, steveston marine, etc. I’ll have access to internet too.

Communication is another thing to think about. Because I’ll be in the U.S., I don’t want my cell phone to be active, incurring international roaming charges. So how will I communicate? Fortunately, there’s this thing called the internet. I have to find a hotspot that I can use, and then I get Skype or Zoom, as well as emails. however, when away from the wifi hotspot, how to talk to folks? For that, there’s inreach, which I just reactivated. That will allow me to get short text message, send short text messages.

Transportation around town when I need to go shopping for food – we’ve decided I’ll bring my bike. It’s not that the grocery is so very far away, it’s that the bike can carry more “stuff” in paniers than I can in my hands. Plus there’s the question of how to get home from the boat. According to Google, it’s a bit over a 2 hour bike ride, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll come home on my bike.

Meanwhile we’re also accumulating ‘stuff’ to bring onto the boat. Bedding, tools, rags, warm gear, rain gear, things to heat the boat with (at least until I’ve repaired the boat heater — but, tied up to the dock, I’m not sure I’d want to use a diesel-powered heater when I have elctricity right there).

Well, tomorrow the tasks begin (again) that require businesses that are open and can take phone calls. It’s good training for being on a boat where there’s ALWAYS something to do!

The big stumbling block was always where to keep our boat. The COVID epidemic and our various responses to it has made finding a berth difficult – which is not meant as condemnation of those actions.

there is a Marina (actually, two of them) nearby. The difficult thing is that they are on the U.S. side of the international border, and we are on the Canadian side, as is the boat. However, we have hatched a plan that, we hope, will allow us to put the boat into one. Considering that Marina is the only one that has space available AND can accommodate our length AND isn’t hidden behind some bridges too low for us, it’s really our only choice.

Today will be nailing that down, which will leave only two more obstacles – insurance and the windlass repair. I trust that the windlass will be working, so that isn’t a worry. Insurance is a bit more worrisome. They seem to want 2-3 years of boat ownership, which begs the question of how does one get 2-3 years of boat ownership if you won’t insure me for that time?

oh well, we’ll figure it out!

Well, we thought that we had a place to keep our new boat. It was an expensive place, but any port in a storm… or so we thought.

Unfortunately, there was this line on the chart that was missing some critical information. The line is a bridge that we’d have to cross under, and my charts didn’t tell me how high off the water it is. Just past it is another bridge, but it’s a “swing bridge” which means it swivels in the middle to let boats too tall to go under it move past. Back to the unmarked bridge, though… A couple of hours of work on the internet and I had the bright idea of using Google streetview to “drive” over the bridge.

The bad news is that there’s no way our new boat was going to fit under that bridge. The worse news is that it doesn’t open in any manner. The result is that there’s no way for us to get TO that new berth. So, it’s back to the drawing board.

Today is calling two more marinas from the original list to see their status, and then I start calling places over in the channel islands. This is less than optimal since it involves a ferry ride over just to get to the boat (and, of course, a ferry ride back too!), adding cost and time. However, if it gives us a place to keep her, then that’s what we’ll have to deal with, this season at least.

Then there’s insurance to iron out as well – though I need to know where we are keeping her so that I know the terms on the insurance I need. 1 million liability? 2? etc. Who’d have thought that the year-long search for a boat was the easy part?

Yesterday was the sea trial in which you simply take the boat out to see how well it sails, though I admit that I turned it into something a bit more (thank you, Joe, for putting up with it!)

The wind was not very high – around 5 knots or so. I figured that a 43 foot boat would need more than that to actually sail, and that putting up the sails would be more an exercise in “see? they exist, and the winches work” than a sailing trip. However, it turns out that Opus will sail in that wind, which is a relief given the typical summer conditions around here. It means, at least during the summer, that we’ll be more than a motorboat with a stick poking up in the air. I mean, if I wanted to motor around here, I’d buy a motorboat.

We left Stanley Park a little bit before 10 and motoried out under the Lion’s gate bridge before we put up the sails. A couple of triangular laps (this is sounding like a club race, isn’t it?) and then it was time to head back to the docks. What I wanted out of this sail was:

1. Watch the procedures regarding the boat
   • How do the sails get raised or doused
   • Motoring
2. Ensure that all the vital equipment worked
3. Check the items that was not/were not checked by the Marine Surveyor

Item 3, we tested the radar on the way in and also the GPS. Other things, such as the windlass operation, Microwave operation, whether there was any water entering the bilges, etc. waited until we returned to the dock.

We found the windlass wasn’t working, and that’s been made a condition of purchase, but all the other things as been agreed to being taken “as is”. I would have liked the owner to drain the fuel tank to remove any water that might be in there, but that was a “nice to have” rather than a requirement. If he doesn’t do it, I’ll have to.

After the sail, we went up to see the other bits and bobs that come with it – a locker of sails, granny bars, life raft, etc. I admit, it was an impressive inventory.

Anne and I had previously agreed that we were not going to make a decision there and on that day, so today is the big decision – do we buy or not? I think we do, but I want to make one last check with Anne before sending a message to the broker.

After that, assuming Anne says yes, it’s head down applying for insurance and calling marinas. We will need to find a home for our ship.

You know, I completely forgot that it was Easter weekend. It’s rather difficult to make calls for things like moorage when everyone is off chasing bunny rabbit eggs. So, instead, today was a day of planning – creating shopping lists, prioritizing shopping lists, creating task lists, prioritizing task lists.

Anne is a list maker, a habit that is slowly starting to rub off on me. Currently we are maintaining a list of boat items and tasks in a spreadsheet on Google Sheets, and it has 134 items on it that we’re colour coding. Red for “need to do before sailing at all”; orange means “need to do in the first month”; yellow for “Need to do the first summer”; white is “No deadline planned, though probably over the winter”.

And so we come to our first disagreement. Like 99% of our disagreements it’s kind of a no-event. There’s no anger, no shouting, no resentment. I just disagree with some of the things that she’s prioritized as red and, I’m sure, she will disagree with some of my prioritizations as well. For me, a “red” item is “Does this have to be done before going for a day sail the first time?” Orange is “Does this have to be done before or concurrent with our first multi-day trip?” etc. I want to keep the red things down so that they’re not overwhelming (and so that our new boat isn’t a dock queen for the next 2 months). I want to concentrate on the essentials and then expand from there.

That doesn’t mean we won’t do some of the orange things before we get all the red things done, of course. Some of the red things are, at the moment, only things I can do as Anne is not a mechanic (yet!). So she may be knocking off some orange, yellow, or even white things while I’m cursing at engines or duct work or wiring.

And, yes, I admit that I’ve been persuing the catalogs of B&G and Gill and Raymarine and Furuno looking at the bright shiney things but the boat actually has an electronics suite, so revamping all of that is not in the cards at the moment. I might need to add a Wifi gateway to the system so that my iPad can interface with the data from the helm. The current chart potter at the helm is, by the admission of the current owner, not reliable. There is a second chart plotter on an arm that can be swung into the companionway hatch, but I really do not like that arrangement, so we’ll be doing something about it. Probably an orange or yellow, task, though. Maybe even white.

Cutting open the fuel filter led to an unpleasant discovery. However, first we need to discuss the structure of a fuel filter.

There is an external metal shell inside of which the actual filter sits. At one end of the shell is the top and in the flat top is a series of holes – small ones in a circle surrounding a larger threaded one in the center.

Fuel enters the filter shell through the smaller holes. Inside they go through a corrugated filter (corrugated so there’s more surface area) into the center of the filter, which is hollow. The fuel goes up the center, hollow, section and out the bigger hole in the top and thence onwards through the fuel system. Marine diesels generally have two of these filters – the primary and the secondary. The secondary filters out what gets through the primary filter.

I brought the secondary filter home with me after it was changed during the Mechanical Inspection, and cut it open with a dremel tool.

What we found was that the inner core was severely rusted, which indicates that there was significant amounts of water over a long period of time in the center of the filter. Since there is nothing between this filter and the engine to prevent it, that means there’s been water in the engine too. Despite being a marine diesel, they do not like water in them. They want to stay dry.

The other bad news was that there was significant blow by on one of the cylinders. This means that the piston isn’t sealing against the cylinder wall correctly and stuff is getting past it, indicating damage to the piston, the piston rings, or the cylinders themselves. Unfortunately, without opening up the engine, we can’t tell how much damage has been done to it at all, meaning we’re taking some risk in buying the boat. The engine might work fine for years or it might die tomorrow. Fixing it could be a few hundred dollars, six thousand dollars, or need complete replacing at about twenty thousand dollars, plus labour.

We’ll wait for the results of the marine survey and then talk to the seller and see if we can come to an agreement about who shoulders how much risk. Worst case is that we walk away from the deal, though I’m hoping that doesn’t happen.

Due to the short time frame in taking possession of the boat, we can’t stop working on things. Today’s “To-Do” list consists of cutting open the extracted secondary fuel filter to examine it for rust and then beginning the search for some place to keep her, long-term.

Normally I’d use a hacksaw to open the fuel filter but since I lack one of those, it’s going to be a Dremel tool with a cutting wheel on it. This should be an interesting experience.

Basically, I’ll be cutting the end off of it (the end facing us in the picture) and then examining the side of it we can’t see, that’s close to that center (big) hole. I’ll be mainly looking for rust, but also examining it for any other oddities that might indicate that things were in the fuel that shouldn’t be, and that they were making it into the engine.

After that will come phoning around to the various marinas looking for a place to keep our new boat. This is about as easy as finding on-the-street parking in New York City. I had hoped the search would be made a bit less difficult by easing COVID restrictions but, unfortunately, yesterday had the restrictions tightened. Still, there’s nothing to do except keep on plugging away.

We’re following multiple lines of attack on this problem, though, ranging from sub-leasing moorage from someone who is intending on being away for a bit, to joining yacht clubs (which isn’t a bad idea all on its own). We’ll see what comes of it all!

Tomorrow, the boat will be hauled out of the water so that it’s sitting high and dry for the marine inspection (which I intend to attend) on Friday. Later Friday, it will be refloated and then the current owner will be taking it back to its home port at the Vancouver Rowing Club. Some time next week will be the sea trial in which we get to see how well she actually sails and operates in the “real” marine environment.

And then there’s paying for all these inspections. The mechanical inspection yesterday cost us approximately $800.00. Tomorrow’s marine survey and haul out will come to about $2,000.00, and we’re out that money even if we decide against buying the boat. Darn boat is expensive even before we own her!

This afternoon was the Mechanical Inspection for our potential new (to us) boat. The mechanical inspection is an evaluation of the motor (and motor-attached) things such as the transmission.

It should be said that any used (and even new) sailboat there’s going to be problems. There’s no such thing as a pristine and perfect sailboat. That’s just the nature of the beast. You take something made of metal and fiberglass and gears and electricity and you put it into one of the most hostile environments, there’s going to be problems.

Nevertheless, the mechanical inspection is giving me a bit of pause. You see diesel engines don’t like water. They really don’t like salt water. They especially don’t like salt water inside of them, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, during mechanical inspection, it was discovered that there was water in the primary fuel filter. A lot of water. Following along, we again found water in the secondary fuel filter, which is the last guardian before the engine itself. So, did water pass through the secondary filter and get into the engine? If so, how much? The engine can tolerate a bit of water as it simply turns it into steam and expels it, but more than trace amounts is Not Good^tm.

We (don’t you like how I’m taking part of the credit even though I was simply a passive recording device) found that there is a fair amount of blow-by on at least one cylinder. In an engine, there are the pistons that go up and down in the piston shaft. These pistons need to make a seal with the shaft so that the stuff it’s compressing (fuel and air mixed together) don’t just go around the piston and refise to be compressed. if the piston does not make a seal, then fuel and air leak around the piston. This leakage is “blow by”.

There were other things too, but those are the ones that cause me the most concern as they indicate problems inside the engine. Still, we’ll have to wait for the official report before making any decisions. At the least, though, it’s likely we’ll have to negotiate the price on the boat again. Argh!

It’s taken us more than 6 months of looking, but we’ve finally gone and bought a boat.

Well, Ok, it’s not technically ours yet.  However we made an offer on it and it’s been accepted, so the process of actually buying it has started.  We have, essentially, formally stated that we wish to buy it from the current owner and he has, essentially, formally stated that he wishes to sell it to us.  There’s more legalese involved, but that’s the basics of it.

So what is next?  Next is a whole raft (no pun intended) of things to do.  Obviously we have to finish off the purchasing process.  That requires a marine survey, a mechanical survey, and a sea trial.

What is a Marine Survey?

When you buy a house, you generally have a home inspection.  This is where you have a professional come in and inspect the house for defects, flaws, and problems.  The idea is that the inspector is working for you and, therefore, has a vested interest in finding all the problems and potential problems so that you know the condition of the house you are buying.

A marine survey is very much the same thing except that the thing being inspected is a boat rather than a house.  The survey consists of lifting the boat out of the water so that the bottom can be inspected, then going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.  At the end, the surveyor gives you the results.  At this point you can either say that you accept the boat or that the survey has found something that has you concerned.  You might then negotiate a new price, accept the boat the way it is, agree for the owner or purchaser to fix it, or you might walk away from the deal.

The mechanical survey is similar except that it’s all about the engine only.

What is a sea trial?

It’s a chance to take the boat out and see how it actually performs.  At the same time you want to turn on everything on the boat, check everything while it’s sailing, run the engine, run the water, run the heater, run the radar, the navigation system, the radios, inspect everything for leaks, and also get a bit of a briefing on how the boat works.

Once again, at this point, you have the option of accepting the boat as it is, walking away from it, negotiating a new price, or agreeing that one or the other of you will fix any deficiencies.  Of course, if you open the negotiation again, the seller has some of the same options as you.

But that’s only the beginning!!

Non-Sale related things

You need a place to keep the boat.  This involves finding “moorage” at a dock.  In these times, moorage is scarce and difficult to find.  This is no small task!

You need to obtain insurance.  Just like a car, the boat needs, at a minimum, a liability insurance in case you do something like hit another boat.  Given the cost of boats, you probably also want some sort of loss or damage insurance for you as well.

These are probably going to be the two biggest tasks in the coming weeks before we take possession of the boat in late April.