Gofirstclass
Well-Known Member
This tale actually started in the summer of 2008. We had a 1996 330 Sundancer and trailered it from our home in SE Washington to the San Juan Islands of WA’s NW coast. We spent two weeks up there and both agreed it was one of the best vacations a couple could ask for, and that we wanted to do more long distance and longer time cruising. With our retirement just two years away (at that time) we knew we wanted to be able to spend summers aboard and cruise further up into Canadian waters and possibly venture to Alaska. That was the good news. The bad knews is that we realized our boat was just too small for us to enjoy for longer cruises.
We started looking at boats and homed in on Ocean Alexanders in the 48’-54’ size. We found a boat in Seattle that we liked and took a quick look at it in the fall of 2009. In January, 2010 we made arrangements with our broker to look closely at it when we went to the boat show. The boat had recently had a major price reduction so it was looking better and better. Upon close examination we discovered that boat had some major flaws so we walked away from it and were very discouraged.
We walked the docks at the boat show but weren’t really looking at the boats. We felt like the rug had just been pulled out from us and were pretty discouraged. While doing the dock walk we happened aboard a 50’ Sedan Bridge. I’d never been aboard one and as I followed my wife into the salon, she turned to me and said “Wow, I really like this one.” It was quite different from what we’d been looking at, having almost no wood inside and none outside. It was bright, airy, offered great visibility and everything was on one level from the cockpit to the helm.
I started a search on YachtWorld for 50’ Sedan Bridge boats and discovered there were 50’ and 55’ and priced very close. At first my search criteria was just on the west coast. I expanded it to include the Great Lakes region and found a few more. One, a 1995 55’ boat was located in the Detroit area and was as repo boat. The YachtWorld ad mentioned the possibility of taking a trade so I started making phone calls.
As I looked more closely at the boat and it looked good, I got the HIN from the selling brokerage and called Sea Ray for a build sheet. That is the sheet that details everything that went into the boat when it was built. Whoever originally ordered this boat had spec’d a lot of add ons including the CAT 3406 engines, leather upholstery throughout the salon, and numerous other upgrades.
I got the serial numbers of both CAT engines and called the CAT dealer in MI to find out what (if any) work had been done on them. The dealership had done all maintenance on the boat and was very familiar with it. I spoke with the person who had done all the maintenance for the four years before the boat got repo’d and he said the engines were in perfect shape, that the prior owner had not spared the dollars when it came to maintenance. I had my broker in Seattle start negotiations with the selling brokerage and when we started to get close to where I wanted to be I had two surveys done on the boat. The first was the engine/transmission/genset survey done by the guy who had worked on the CATS and the second by a surveyor in the area on the hull and equipment. Both surveys came out very clean so I flew to MI and sea trialed the boat. It came through the sea trail with flying colors so we continued to negotiate on price. We got to within $10,000 of where I wanted to end up so we were ready to put ink to paper.
My wife and I flew to Detroit to do another sea trial to confirm what I’d experienced on the first one the boat did well again. We completed the negotiations to include some minor repairs to the boat and signed contracts.
I was to pay for the shipping of the boat to WA and my boat back to MI. I’d already contacted a trucker in Seattle that had a good reputation and he’d given me a good quote on shipping both boats. He was one of few that owned the type of trailer needed to haul the boat but by the time I bought the boat he had sold his trailer. The new owner of the trailer gave me a quote that was more than double the one I’d received so I started shopping online for a trucker.
I got several quotes that ranged from $27,000 to over $50,000. I finally settled on a load broker out of FL who owned the right kind of trailer, knew the flybridge had to come off and be shipped separately, and had the lowest bid. We arranged shipping dates and signed contracts. At that point I felt pretty comfortable that things were progressing.
One of the horror stories I had heard about selling brokerages who were to remove flybridges and sending boats to distant areas was they would simply cut cables and wires to save time with the dismantling and ultimately save on their costs. I wanted to avoid that mess so I found a boat yard in Portland, OR who would be able to install the equipment I wanted on the boat and also would fly one of their technicians to MI to supervise the dismantling. The tech knew he would have to put the boat back together so he was very careful to label every wire, photo document every part of the disassembly, and bag all the hardware in zip lock baggies and label each bag with what the contents came from.
As it turned out, we were in MI when the tech was there so we met and talked with him about it, and were able to watch the haul out and removal of the flybridge and the boat being loaded on the trailer for transport. Here are some pictures of that progress.
We started looking at boats and homed in on Ocean Alexanders in the 48’-54’ size. We found a boat in Seattle that we liked and took a quick look at it in the fall of 2009. In January, 2010 we made arrangements with our broker to look closely at it when we went to the boat show. The boat had recently had a major price reduction so it was looking better and better. Upon close examination we discovered that boat had some major flaws so we walked away from it and were very discouraged.
We walked the docks at the boat show but weren’t really looking at the boats. We felt like the rug had just been pulled out from us and were pretty discouraged. While doing the dock walk we happened aboard a 50’ Sedan Bridge. I’d never been aboard one and as I followed my wife into the salon, she turned to me and said “Wow, I really like this one.” It was quite different from what we’d been looking at, having almost no wood inside and none outside. It was bright, airy, offered great visibility and everything was on one level from the cockpit to the helm.
I started a search on YachtWorld for 50’ Sedan Bridge boats and discovered there were 50’ and 55’ and priced very close. At first my search criteria was just on the west coast. I expanded it to include the Great Lakes region and found a few more. One, a 1995 55’ boat was located in the Detroit area and was as repo boat. The YachtWorld ad mentioned the possibility of taking a trade so I started making phone calls.
As I looked more closely at the boat and it looked good, I got the HIN from the selling brokerage and called Sea Ray for a build sheet. That is the sheet that details everything that went into the boat when it was built. Whoever originally ordered this boat had spec’d a lot of add ons including the CAT 3406 engines, leather upholstery throughout the salon, and numerous other upgrades.
I got the serial numbers of both CAT engines and called the CAT dealer in MI to find out what (if any) work had been done on them. The dealership had done all maintenance on the boat and was very familiar with it. I spoke with the person who had done all the maintenance for the four years before the boat got repo’d and he said the engines were in perfect shape, that the prior owner had not spared the dollars when it came to maintenance. I had my broker in Seattle start negotiations with the selling brokerage and when we started to get close to where I wanted to be I had two surveys done on the boat. The first was the engine/transmission/genset survey done by the guy who had worked on the CATS and the second by a surveyor in the area on the hull and equipment. Both surveys came out very clean so I flew to MI and sea trialed the boat. It came through the sea trail with flying colors so we continued to negotiate on price. We got to within $10,000 of where I wanted to end up so we were ready to put ink to paper.
My wife and I flew to Detroit to do another sea trial to confirm what I’d experienced on the first one the boat did well again. We completed the negotiations to include some minor repairs to the boat and signed contracts.
I was to pay for the shipping of the boat to WA and my boat back to MI. I’d already contacted a trucker in Seattle that had a good reputation and he’d given me a good quote on shipping both boats. He was one of few that owned the type of trailer needed to haul the boat but by the time I bought the boat he had sold his trailer. The new owner of the trailer gave me a quote that was more than double the one I’d received so I started shopping online for a trucker.
I got several quotes that ranged from $27,000 to over $50,000. I finally settled on a load broker out of FL who owned the right kind of trailer, knew the flybridge had to come off and be shipped separately, and had the lowest bid. We arranged shipping dates and signed contracts. At that point I felt pretty comfortable that things were progressing.
One of the horror stories I had heard about selling brokerages who were to remove flybridges and sending boats to distant areas was they would simply cut cables and wires to save time with the dismantling and ultimately save on their costs. I wanted to avoid that mess so I found a boat yard in Portland, OR who would be able to install the equipment I wanted on the boat and also would fly one of their technicians to MI to supervise the dismantling. The tech knew he would have to put the boat back together so he was very careful to label every wire, photo document every part of the disassembly, and bag all the hardware in zip lock baggies and label each bag with what the contents came from.
As it turned out, we were in MI when the tech was there so we met and talked with him about it, and were able to watch the haul out and removal of the flybridge and the boat being loaded on the trailer for transport. Here are some pictures of that progress.
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