Where Do We Go From Here?

Wow, there is so much to be done before we could bring the boat home.  First we discussed bringing it home with the broker.  Previous interested buyers (from Michigan) had discussed and investigated bringing the boat home by truck.  Putting the boat on a truck involved taking the bridge off and putting both the top and the bottom on two flat bed trucks.  It would have been considered a wide load and would have needed an escort from Florida to Michigan.  Taking the boat apart, shipping it and putting it back together would have cost them $22,000. Yikes!

We knew right from the beginning that if we bought this boat; we would be bringing it home by water.  Yup, driving it up the Atlantic coast and home to Michigan! So, let the adventure begin! We discussed taking time off with our supervisors at work.  We were both given the green light to take off three weeks.

When we left the boat after our survey and sea trial we packed up all the bedding from the boat in plastic bags in the back of the truck.  It all smelled a bit musty and needed to be dry cleaned before we go back to bring the boat home. This boat was used so little that it still has all of the original "Carver" sheets with monograms. And some Carver monogrammed towels too.

The boat has two cabins.  Both with queen size beds.  So we had two comforters to clean and about twenty decorator pillows.  I decided that cleaning all of that was going to cost us a fortune.  So we took the comforters to the cleaners and I decided to take the pillows apart and cold water wash all the covers.

Pillows in the V-Berth (Guest Cabin)

Pillows in the master Cabin

Pillows in the Salon

All of the covers came out great; but oh my, some of the pillow forms that were inside just exploded in the washing machine!  I ended up buying some new pillow stuffers from JoAnn Fabrics.  Dan and I both took a couple evenings to sew them all back together.  He is becoming quite the marine hand stitcher!

The explosion actually worked out very well, I put all the stuffins in pillowcases and pinned them shut. I tossed them in the dryer and they came out nice.  Some of the pillow forms came out really lumpy.

Projects started to pile up on us.  Dan got busy ordering parts; some to be shipped direct to Florida and some home.  I talked him into buying some new Buell air horns.  The existing horns on the boat barely made a peep.  We were going to need to make some noise when we started into the locks and canals.

At one point our purchase documents started to break down. The broker’s paperwork was having issues and our financing arm was having communication problems.  Our boat owner was in Nigeria, our broker in Florida, our documentation company in Annapolis and we were in Michigan. We had a few tense days; and then, wow, we were signing on the bottom line.

We bought a BOAT!

We continued to take care of the necessary repairs.  Another tense situation popped up when we tried to order new engine displays for our bridge.  Our engines are Volvos. There weren’t any available in Michigan or anywhere in the US.  The gages had to come from Sweden.  Our distributor said they would ship on June 9^th and be in Michigan in about ten days.  Ten days came and went. 

Panic !  Dan had more discussion with the distributor, now they would be in Michigan mid-July. That was not going to work. After some more discussion; our displays were located in Germany and shipped overnight to our distributor at a premium shipping charge on our bill.  Sigh.  But, now we have displays and will actually be able to tell how many rpm’s we are turning and how hard our engines are working.

The receipts are starting to stack up for the things we have ordered and received. I am keeping a spread sheet and it’s going to give us a really clear idea of all the monies spent.

We’ve broken the spreadsheet down into travel, actual cost of the boat, boat repairs and boat “extras”. 

Travel includes both trips to Florida and will include the cost of getting back down there to bring the boat home. We will also add fuel costs for the boat trip.

Actual cost of the boat is our down payment, documentations costs, loan costs and sales tax!  Yup, we had to pay Michigan sales tax to get the boat registered here.

Boat repairs will include all of the repairs necessary to make the boat safe and comfortable to travel.  That includes the new refrigerator and air conditioner.  Yup, we need refrigeration.  The cook says it’s non-negotiable.

Boat extras on the list include the following: new self inflating PFDs, (they inflate when you fall in the water), dual trumpet Buell air horns, ships bell, fender balls, fender rail clips, an Ipad for redundancy in ships charting,  a Great Lakes chip for the chart plotter and a banner with our boat’s name on it.

We are getting down to the wire and plan to leave for Florida on June 25^th.