13 Days and counting.. Thursday the 5th and I am on my way to meet tug. The interior should be good by the end of July or the 1st of August. Sea trials for a month then Bon Voyage:)
In the mean time, I am not bored. I am unpacking and repacking belongings. It is absolutely amazing at the amount of crap you do not need and just gets in your way:)
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The money part:)
Yep, you need some. I just bought tickets from Las Vegas to Ft. Lauderdale, where I will need a hotel room and a rental car, just to look at the boat. Going down on the 5th and coming back on the 7th. This is starting to get exciting. I will put up some pics of the visit. In the mean time, I am unpacking stored boxes and whittling down what I need to take. I have 4 boxes at any given time in my living room, as they get full, I tape them up and move on. One says "storage", another "boat", yet another "garage sale", and finally, "ex-girlfriends stuff" (that is most of it:). It is somewhat fascinating at the amount of useless crap you collect over 30 years. So I have developed a rule that is working well. If I have not seen it or used it in the last two years, I probably don't need it:) There are are exceptions to the "rule", one of them is tools. Oh yeah, on a boat, you will eventually need every one of them, plus a few that you don't have:) I highly suspect that after I am done, I will need to get rid of even more stuff. Boat living is all about max storage and minimalizing your life. Only exactly what you need. The boat need parts and oil. I do not need my high school baseball trophy, Actually, I don't have a high school baseball trophy, but if I did, it would not be coming along:) As technology improves, this gets easier. I like to read. But these days instead of loading 500lbs of books on the boat, I can download them and read them on a Kindle, or whatever is in vogue by september. That space for 75 or 100 books can now be used for something else. Probably beer and rum:) Fishing, snorkling and diving in the Bahamas in Sept. Come on down.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
"The Boat"
Well, this happened a little quicker than I expected:)
I got an email from a really nice guy in Ft. Lauderdale this morning making me an offer on his boat. There is a picture of it on my profile. It is a 38 foot Benford steel hull tug. The entire hull and deck have just been completed. The owner was going to use this boat to go to the Bahamas but unfortunately he had a traffic accident in Nassau which prohibits this. Everything is completely new or redone on the boat except that it has no interior. The entire inside is stripped and empty. The steel bulkheads are primed with red lead and white epoxy. What is left is outfitting the interior. The teak flooring has already been cut but not installed to facilitate running electrical and plumbing. I get to design the interior to my specs. How cool is that?
I will send pics from beginning to end as work progresses if this works out. The best thing you can do is not to rush into a boat. I have been looking for 6 months and this just fell into my lap. Time to get to work if I want to be gone by September.
I got an email from a really nice guy in Ft. Lauderdale this morning making me an offer on his boat. There is a picture of it on my profile. It is a 38 foot Benford steel hull tug. The entire hull and deck have just been completed. The owner was going to use this boat to go to the Bahamas but unfortunately he had a traffic accident in Nassau which prohibits this. Everything is completely new or redone on the boat except that it has no interior. The entire inside is stripped and empty. The steel bulkheads are primed with red lead and white epoxy. What is left is outfitting the interior. The teak flooring has already been cut but not installed to facilitate running electrical and plumbing. I get to design the interior to my specs. How cool is that?
I will send pics from beginning to end as work progresses if this works out. The best thing you can do is not to rush into a boat. I have been looking for 6 months and this just fell into my lap. Time to get to work if I want to be gone by September.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
You have to start somewhere:)
First, you have to be comitted to going. Becoming an ex-pat is a process. You can't be one of those brainwashed americans who runs around waving little flags on sticks shouting "we're number one" when rationally you realize that you really need to get the hell out.
So, let's move on:) I am in the process of finding "THE" boat. If you are doing this, you have probably already figured out that finding one online is a waste of time. I don't want to shock anyone, but people lie. Yes, I know, it is difficult to believe, but they do, especially salespeople. There are about 200,000 boats online for sale at any given time, 95% of them are offered by brokers. Other than "it" and "the", don't believe a word. The only way to actually find your boat is to go lay hands on it. Crawl all over it. Inspect every millimeter. Pay particular attention to the electrical and plumbing. How many hours on the engine(s) and genset? Gas, Diesel, Sail? (If you don't know why this is important, you don't need a boat:) Most cosmetic work is inconsequential although it does reflect the attitude towards maintenance that the previous owner had. This blog is designed to update people on the pitfalls you might encounter. I will try to keep you updated a few times a week. As I go through the process, I hope it is informative for you.
John
So, let's move on:) I am in the process of finding "THE" boat. If you are doing this, you have probably already figured out that finding one online is a waste of time. I don't want to shock anyone, but people lie. Yes, I know, it is difficult to believe, but they do, especially salespeople. There are about 200,000 boats online for sale at any given time, 95% of them are offered by brokers. Other than "it" and "the", don't believe a word. The only way to actually find your boat is to go lay hands on it. Crawl all over it. Inspect every millimeter. Pay particular attention to the electrical and plumbing. How many hours on the engine(s) and genset? Gas, Diesel, Sail? (If you don't know why this is important, you don't need a boat:) Most cosmetic work is inconsequential although it does reflect the attitude towards maintenance that the previous owner had. This blog is designed to update people on the pitfalls you might encounter. I will try to keep you updated a few times a week. As I go through the process, I hope it is informative for you.
John
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