The Purchase of "Seaquestor"
I have been a sailor since the late sixties when I first sailed on a SeaSnark.
I bought my first boat, a Venture 21, in 1976 in Seattle and trailer-sailed
Puget Sound and many lakes in the area. I sold the Venture when I moved to
Edmonton Alberta in 1978 and was without a boat until 1994 when I convinced my
wife to let me buy a 24 foot Challenger 7.4 sloop. We sailed that boat on a
hydroelectric reservoir on the St. John River in New Brunswick for two seasons
and then decided that it was time for a bigger boat.
We didn't know what we wanted to buy, so I began seriously looking at ads in
Sail, Cruising World and Soundings. Perusing the ads
didn't help much in deciding what to buy, but it did give me a good feel for
what was available in Maine. I should note that we live in New Brunswick, Canada, but
never considered buying a more expensive boat in Canada because of the 18.7%
sales tax we would have had to pay. We decided to buy and keep the new boat
in Maine, where the sailing was reputed to be good.
Thus, not knowing what kind of boat We wanted, I set out on my first boat
shopping trip in January 1996. On that trip I visited Bass Harbor Marine
Brokerage in Bass Harbor, ME. It may seem a bit odd to go boat hunting in Maine
in the middle of the winter, but I wanted to see hull forms, to be able to
shake rudders and prop shafts, and to closely check bottoms for blisters
(I had been reading books on surveying). At Bass Harbor, the broker took me
to see three boats. The first boat was a Morgan Out Island 41. The hull
looked sound, so we climbed under the tarp with flashlights and went aboard.
I came away with an impression of the Morgan as a voluminous dark cave-like
craft (not exactly correct as I found out later). The next boat I looked at
was in inside storage, so I didn't have to crawl under a tarp. It was a Sabre
34, which was very nice, but a bit smaller inside than I was hoping for (it
was also more money that I wanted to pay for a 34 foot boat). The final boat I
looked at was an Allied Princess 36 (the boat I ultimately bought). Although
it was under the tarp like the Morgan, it gave a lighter, but much smaller,
impression than the Morgan 41. The baot was also much cheaper than the Sabre
34 for apparently a lot more boat. I finished that trip with listing sheets for
the three boats and a better idea of what 34-41 foot boats were like inside.
I should say at this point that my search for the right boat was hampered
quite a bit by the fact that I hadn't been on many larger boats for nearly 15
years. The only boat show in New Brunswick is the Saint John Show held each
February. I went to the 1996 show where the biggest sail boat they had on
display was a 20 year old Tanzer 26. Back in the seventies and early eighties
I went to several Seattle Boat Shows where I saw a lot of boats. I had also
sailed on the US Navy's Luders 44s and a Sparkman and Stevens 60 foot yawl
during my stint at the US Naval Academy. Nevertheless, I was really out of
touch with interior layouts and design details of mid-thirty foot boats. I
knew that I wanted an offshore capable boat with considerable interior volume.
I also knew that I didn't want a center boarder because I didn't want any
more below-the-waterline moving parts than I absolutely had to have.
Unfortunately, my lack of familiarity with most boats meant that I didn't
know what boats met my minimalist criteria and what boats did not.
Well back to the details of the search. My schedule didn't permit me to go
boat hunting again until April. During Aprl, May and June 1996, Linda and I
went on about 6-7 visits to brokers on the Maine coast. We looked at a large
variety of boats including a Gulfstar 37 sloop, a Morgan Out Island 37, an Irwin
34, an Allied Seawind II 32 foot ketch, a Hans Christian 43 traditional ketch,
Island Packet 31 and 32 footers, an Omega 36 and Hunter 34 and 37 footers.
Our approach to finding the right boat was to take a quick 40-50 minute look
at a lot of boats. We then discussed what we had seen and decided which
features we liked. Based on those discussions, Linda and I narrowed the list
of boats to three: the Gulfstar 37, the Island Packet 31 and the Allied
Princess 36. I then prepared a detailed check list of things to look for and
went back to take a very close look at each of the three boats on our short
list. My check list was 9 pages long and covered every aspect of the boat I
could think of after seeing the boats and reading several books on surveying and yacht design. I
also drew on the experience I had gained by refitting my 24 footer. I spent
from 4 to 6 hours examining each boat.
The first boat I looked at in detail was the Gulfstar 37. During my interior
examination it became clear that the boat had been prettied-up by the
application of a single coat of varnish. I also found that I didn't fit into
the cockpit lockers, which were the major access points for engine maintainence.
That observation almost stopped my examination. When I got to my detailed look
at the bottom (a combination of careful visual examination and sounding with
a plastic mallet), it became clear that the boat had at one time had blister
problems. A repair had been done, but the location of each 3-4 inch blister
was obvious. That observation combined with the cockpit locker problem caused
me to drop the Gulfstar off of the list.
I then looked at the Island Packet 31. When we first looked at that boat we were
very favorably impressed with its condition, which was apparently marred only
by a few gel coat chips at the transom. However, when I started to look at
the boat closely, I immediately developed a bad feeling because the broker,
who refused to leave me alone on the boat, kept trying to distract me from
looking at things. In the end, I decided to drop the Island Packet from the
list for the following reasons. First, there were the design features that I
didn't like about the boat. The major negative feature I found was the 70
gallon fresh water tank located under the V-berth. I didn't like that for two
reasons. First, the tank virtually filled the space under the V-berth and
completely eliminated that area for stowage purposes. Second, I thought that
the addition, or absence, of 560 pounds of water in the fore peak could not
help but affect the sailing qualities of the boat. I also found the installation
of the head holding tank to be very interesting. It certainly met the requirements
for zero discharge areas since there was no discharge of any kind on the tank.
It was attached to the head with a Y-valve that also went to a thru-hull, but
as far as I could see, anything that went into that tank would have to stay
there. My second major area for concern was based on my inspection of the
sole and the hull under the sole (where I could see it). I became concerned when
I found several rotted places in the sole. I was also concerned because the
paint on the inside of the hull was peeling in a way that I had seen before on
fiberglass that had been submerged in water that froze in the winter. Based on
these two observations, I came to the conclusion that the boat had been left
for at least one winter with the bilge filled with water to the base of the
cabin sole. I decided to drop the boat from my list, when the broker tried to
talk me out of having the boat surveyed.
That left me with onlt the Allied Princess 36 on my list of possible boats. Consequently, Linda and I went back to Bass Harbor Marine to take another look at the boat, which was then in the water. During our visit we decided to make an offer on the Allied Princess. After we made the offer, I arranged for the boat to be surveyed. On the day of the survey, I met the surveyor at the dock and spent the day on the boat with him. We simultaneously looked the boat over in detail. The survey included having the boat hauled and sounding the entire hull below the water line. After the survey was completed, I called home to discuss the results with Linda. We decided to accept the boat and finalized the purchase in late June 1996.
In retrospect, I think our search method was pretty good, but we really should have insisted on sailing the boats we were interested in. We made a concious decision not to go to boat shows (the closest would have been in Boston - 9 hours drive from home). That decision was based on the idea that it would be better to spend the money that it would have cost to go to the shows on the boat. Overall, I think that we got what we were looking for - an offshore capable mid-thirties boat that was structurally sound, but needed some fixing up. I should point out that while I love sailing, my real love has turned out to be working on the boat. I enjoy that so much that I am seriously considering quitting my present job as a professor and going into boat building. Well I can dream.
NOTE: I plan to put the pictures of the boats we looked at up on this page in the near future.
This page posted 11 December 1997 by Todd Dunn expet@unb.ca
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