I didn't know what the procedures were for buying a boat. For example, I knew that I had to get a surveyor. I also picked the best surveyor that I could get. But I didn't realize that there was a down payment to give to the broker. That was no problem but it was a bit like buying a house. So I followed that model which I knew quite a bit about.
I wanted to do a sea trial for the boat, but all that consisted of was powering the boat to the boat yard where the survey occurred. The sails were raised at the dock. There was no sea trial by actually taking the boat out for a sail. That was a bit surprising to me. It seemed like buying a car without driving it. But everyone seemed to think that motoring was okay and raising the sails at the dock to inspect their quality was satisfactory.
The most important aspect of buying is to get a good surveyor. Capt. Neal Haynes of Bluewater Surveys is awesome. One of the things that I didn't do was to have a diesel mechanic give the engine the once over. But I did have an oil analysis done which indicated no problems with metal contaminants in the oil. The engine, a Perkins 4.108, appeared to be in good shape even with 1250 hours on it.
It is also good to read some books about surveying. One of the ones that I bought was Inspecting the Aging Sailboat by Don Casey. It let me know what to look for and gave me some ideas of what I might be facing. I also followed Capt. Haynes around when he did the survey. I learned a lot from that. It was money well worth spending and provided me with lots of knowledge about the boat.
Luckily, the survey revealed that Sojourner basically needed some cosmetic work done. The canvas on the dodger and the mainsail cover were reaching the end of their life. The deck needs a coat of non-skid. The swaged fittings need to be replaced with mechanical fittings. Not much else was problematic at survey. So it was a deal, and I proceeded to accept the yacht.
Closing went smoothly. And finally she is mine!
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