Buying a Tartan 33
This year we bought a boat. This is a description of the process from finding the listing, to purchase, to ferrying it home.
Last March, a friend called and asked if he could buy my Pearson 30 which up to that time, I’d had no intention of selling. Accordingly it was in great shape, intended to be my final boat, both condition and upgrade-wise. The next step was to find a new boat that we’d rather own than the 30.
A day or so later, my wife Judy called me at a meeting to tell me about a T-33 that was listed in Bristol RI. It looked perfect in the listing, already having everything we wanted in a boat except an auto-pilot. Having a good friend on this list, whose boat we had sailed on, we didn't need to think twice about wanting this one. How difficult can it be to install an auto-pilot?
The next morning I called the broker to find out that the boat had been listed since the previous May with no offers and it was still on the hard outside his office and at 1:00 PM the next day a couple was coming to look at it. There should have been a red flag raised at this point but we liked what we saw on the listing. We drove down the next day at 11:00 AM to inspect it before the next customer arrived. What we found was a rather nice T-33 that had nice bones but had been neglected and rarely used since 2008 after a majorr efit in 2006. The potential was there but the boat was a mess. Water had been leaking in through a lot of places doing damage and in general making it look awful. I suspect it’s aesthetic condition scared off any potential purchasers. The appearance alone took a lot off its value and appeal. However, other than the exterior varnish looking awful, there wasn't anything that looked seriously bad to our eager eyes. Is that a red flag flapping around here somewhere?
On the other hand, we had a check in hand from our other boat, we knew the T-33 and I've been doing all my own work since my first boat in 1962 and there wasn't anything there that I had't done before, so we weren't afraid to buy the boat. Accordingly we made an offer conditional on survey which was promptly accepted by the owner.
A few weeks went by until we could get the boat surveyed. The survey was an eye-opener. There was almost nothing that didn't need work, repair or replacement from the Starboard running lite on the bow to the sternlight on the aft rail. About half way through the survey Judy and I had the conversation: did we really want to continue the purchase of this boat? Judy had never been through a process like this but I had a few times and I knew what was coming. I could see the interminable work that was coming when we'd much rather have been sailing our old boat. But we decided that the price was right and any boat we looked at would require a lot of work and this was an inherently good boat in repairable condition that had most of what equipment we wanted already there and we were eager to buy the boat. So we continued the process. We adjusted our offer to reflect the results of the survey and the owner agreed to accept it. We now owned a boat or it owned us.
We were eager to get the boat home but first we had to get things like the missing navigation lights fixed, wiring rigged for our GPS and connect up the fresh water tank and pump, get the stove working, locate all the sails and running rigging, etc. After five trips down to do necessary repairs before the long trip home, we finally got the boat painted and in the water, ready for the sea trial. The plan was to leave for Boston on Saturday AM a week later and we scheduled the trial for the Monday prior. It blew up 30 knots all day that Monday of the sea trial which wasn't what we would have requested for a trial on a boat that we knew required major TLC but it was the only day the surveyor was available. We went to the mooring where the boat was and started the engine. The surveyor went below and did his thing.He finished down below and it was now time to drop the mooring. Just as he touched the wheel, the engine quit. Now we had to get the owner to get the engine running to satisfy the surveyor and get the delayed sea trial done in time to leave five days later which involved booking yard mechanics and coordinating us and the surveyor. We had to leave the following weekend because of the tide schedule in the Cape Cod Canal or delay the delivery for two weeks.
To make a long story short, the engine needed parts that wouldn't be available until Friday and assuming all went well, the only time the surveyor had available was 4:00PM Saturday and we wouldn't know until he arrived whether the engine was OK. Our ride would have left for Boston by then, potentially leaving us stranded w/o a car and a boat w/o a running engine. But everything went well and we dropped off the surveyor at 5:00PM Saturday and we left the dock just as the fog rolled in to the harbor. We had a boat that was running but with an engine that we couldn't trust, using our old operating GPS and no depth sounder, heading North 24 hours away. But by then, the owner had replaced the electric fuel pump and polished the fuel in the tank and replaced the raw water pump and the exhaust mixing fitting so we felt optimistic about the engine. The rest would be on us now. This helped the odds of our making it home.
But all went well and we finally arrived back in Boston Sunday afternoon with no problems. Even the wind was favorable. This was finally a good omen.
The next step was to lay out what work would be done first and what would be postponed until winter layup. We decided to work the important things first that would directly affect the utility of the boat.