I think the best way to start any blog is at the start....Duh!
My wife and I had decided we wanted to try out exploring the waters of Maine, knowing there is just so much of this awesome state that can only be seen by water. We decided to buy a boat while looking out at Casco Bay over some drinks at a favorite watering hole. This might not have been the most rational idea, but isn't that what makes life fun?
Though we both have had a love affair of the water through our life, my wife's was through swimming, and I had done the boating thing. She had never raised a sail, while I grew up sailing small boats like lasers, and sunfish's, and had sailed in college on 420's. I had also crewed on a few larger keelboats over the years, but being rail meat is obviously different than owning, maintaining and sailing the boat yourself.
So we just started looking at every boat reasonably in our price range, making a list of what we liked and what we didn't. It was all very scientific, and then I saw a local ad for this Ericson 35-3. It was sitting in a local front lawn with a for sale sign on it, and some investigation later we found out it was being represented by a broker. Talked to him and in October we finally got to get onboard. It took us 20 minutes of looking at the boat, walking below decks and around it to just KNOW this was our boat. All of those spreadsheet entires felt a bit foolish, we had just walked around it and smiled at each other and knew she would be ours. We loved the interior woodwork, the wide beam, and she seemed to have been loved and well cared for. Our biggest issues that we knew of was the terrible interior colors
After our showing, we talked to the owner, it was unclear exactly what happened, but I could put together that the boat had been stored at the property to overwinter, and then there were some personal issues and she had sat for 3 years. So things were clean, and in order, but there were some challenges to the purchase. We were headed into winter, and by the time we had put an offer in and it was accepted, it was December, and we couldn't launch for a sea trial, so the decision was made to accept the contract with a holdback for a spring trial, held by our broker in escrow.
The next trial was to get the boat off the property. We had several large snow and ice storms, but the property owner wanted it gone. We tried to negotiate a storage fee, but the house was being rented out, and the boat was not considered "safe". So we found a intrepid mover willing to help, and on the day of moving dug the boat out of the snow, and took down the shrink wrap, carefully, as the plan was to reuse it.
The second challenge was that our destination was our yard, however, it turned out at the day of the move our driveway was at the bottom of an ice hill, and the driver was not willing to take the boat down it. Luckily my brother in law lives nearby and was willing to give our boat a winter home until we launched.
Here she is finally in his yard for the winter. We had to shovel a path for the truck to bring her in as well.
Then using shrink wrap tape, we re-used the wood frame, and put the shrink back up, since a storm was incoming.
We now officially owned her. However, because of the escrow situation, we couldn't start doing many modifications, because if something was wrong in the sea trial for the spring we wanted to be clear it wasn't something we had created. So she basically stayed where she was, and we patently waited, hedging that the engine was ok, and other systems worked. We only had a $3000 escrow, so if the issues totaled more than that, we were on our own for the rest.
In the spring we took the cover off, waxed and buffed the outside which had oxidized pretty badly in the time it had set (the deck and cabin top, topsides had been painted), and put her new name on.
One of the other things we did was to sand and varnish the weatherboards over the winter, because my wife does love some brightwork.
Part 2, will be coming on the launch and sea trial.
My wife and I had decided we wanted to try out exploring the waters of Maine, knowing there is just so much of this awesome state that can only be seen by water. We decided to buy a boat while looking out at Casco Bay over some drinks at a favorite watering hole. This might not have been the most rational idea, but isn't that what makes life fun?
Though we both have had a love affair of the water through our life, my wife's was through swimming, and I had done the boating thing. She had never raised a sail, while I grew up sailing small boats like lasers, and sunfish's, and had sailed in college on 420's. I had also crewed on a few larger keelboats over the years, but being rail meat is obviously different than owning, maintaining and sailing the boat yourself.
So we just started looking at every boat reasonably in our price range, making a list of what we liked and what we didn't. It was all very scientific, and then I saw a local ad for this Ericson 35-3. It was sitting in a local front lawn with a for sale sign on it, and some investigation later we found out it was being represented by a broker. Talked to him and in October we finally got to get onboard. It took us 20 minutes of looking at the boat, walking below decks and around it to just KNOW this was our boat. All of those spreadsheet entires felt a bit foolish, we had just walked around it and smiled at each other and knew she would be ours. We loved the interior woodwork, the wide beam, and she seemed to have been loved and well cared for. Our biggest issues that we knew of was the terrible interior colors
After our showing, we talked to the owner, it was unclear exactly what happened, but I could put together that the boat had been stored at the property to overwinter, and then there were some personal issues and she had sat for 3 years. So things were clean, and in order, but there were some challenges to the purchase. We were headed into winter, and by the time we had put an offer in and it was accepted, it was December, and we couldn't launch for a sea trial, so the decision was made to accept the contract with a holdback for a spring trial, held by our broker in escrow.
The next trial was to get the boat off the property. We had several large snow and ice storms, but the property owner wanted it gone. We tried to negotiate a storage fee, but the house was being rented out, and the boat was not considered "safe". So we found a intrepid mover willing to help, and on the day of moving dug the boat out of the snow, and took down the shrink wrap, carefully, as the plan was to reuse it.
The second challenge was that our destination was our yard, however, it turned out at the day of the move our driveway was at the bottom of an ice hill, and the driver was not willing to take the boat down it. Luckily my brother in law lives nearby and was willing to give our boat a winter home until we launched.
Here she is finally in his yard for the winter. We had to shovel a path for the truck to bring her in as well.
Then using shrink wrap tape, we re-used the wood frame, and put the shrink back up, since a storm was incoming.
We now officially owned her. However, because of the escrow situation, we couldn't start doing many modifications, because if something was wrong in the sea trial for the spring we wanted to be clear it wasn't something we had created. So she basically stayed where she was, and we patently waited, hedging that the engine was ok, and other systems worked. We only had a $3000 escrow, so if the issues totaled more than that, we were on our own for the rest.
In the spring we took the cover off, waxed and buffed the outside which had oxidized pretty badly in the time it had set (the deck and cabin top, topsides had been painted), and put her new name on.
One of the other things we did was to sand and varnish the weatherboards over the winter, because my wife does love some brightwork.
Part 2, will be coming on the launch and sea trial.
