We bought a Beneteau 473

We have had our 1980 Allmand 31 for a few years now.  We all really enjoyed this boat, it was safe, forgiving, roomy, easy to handle, and always got us home.  We learned a lot about boats with it but had decided that we wanted a few more creature comforts then it offered and that meant looking for a bigger boat.  We had attended the 2016 Annapolis boat show and after looking at all shapes and sizes of sail boats were thinking something in the 36-38ft range was what we should be looking at and that we would start looking for our next diamond in the rough during the winter of 2018 after one more summer with the Allmand.  Going in we had 4 things we really wanted our Allmand did not provide:

1.  Swim platform, personally I never liked climbing up that ladder but it also made it really hard to get the dog on board should she decide to go swimming. 
2. A bed we would not have to climb over each other to get in or out of as we never go to sleep at the same time its always awkward when the second person is stepping on the others head climbing into bed at night. 
3. Three cabins (one for each kid and one for us) 
4. We really wanted a much newer fresh water only boat.  Salt water can be hard on things and we figured it would be worth the extra premium a fresh water only boat usually gets.

Our Beneteau 473 soon to be named Escape Plan B

Well we nearly made it.  After a fun summer of mainly long weekend trips we were on what had become our traditional end of summer adventure.  This usually involved a 30 mile evening sail from Gibraltar, MI to an anchorage near Put-in-Bay, then on to Sandusky the next morning for a couple nights at Cedar Point.  All had gone well but the day we wanted to leave the weather was not in our favor so we decided to spend an extra night.  While the kids were enjoying early ride times I wondered down to check out the boats they were bringing in for the boat show that weekend.  One of the dealers had brought over a Catalina 35 I was interested in as I had been looking at Yacht World most the summer and was really starting to focus my search on the Catalina 38's.  Another dealer had brought over a couple of Jeanneau's with duel helms that had a ton a cockpit space that were beautiful but no where near our price range.  Lunch time rolled around and I brought Amy over to walk by them knowing we were not in the market for something new.  While we were there another dealer brought in a large Beneteau, being a lover of all boats I of course had to walk down and check it out.  Turns out the salesman was there and invited us on board to see it, I think to avoid having to work on the booth for a bit :).  Seemed they were a power boat dealer that had taken it in on trade, not really knowing anything about sail boats they simply hoped to flip it quickly.  This was the cleanest used boat I have ever seen, it showed like a new, the sails had been recently replaced, heck even the anchor locker had been scrubbed perfectly clean.  Once on board we saw it had a similar  layout as our Allmand we loved just bigger.  It had duel helms which provided a huge cockpit. Did I say boat showed well?  The AC felt great and it had lots of gadgets that our older boat didn't like refrigeration, wind instruments, invertor, and more but was huge.  Who the heck needed a 47ft boat in the Great Lakes.  It was nice to see and we walked away.

After going back to the park for some more rides it was still sticking in our head so we took the kids back to see it that afternoon where the dealer gave us a buy it now price hoping to get it out the door before the show which would allow him to fit in several other power boats in its place.

This price put it a bit over the top of our price range but really only a bit more then our overall purchase budget (price of the boat, survey, transportation or trip back, and fixing/replacing some stuff) making it only a bit more then some of the nicer used 38's I had been scoping out.  Additionally they had already repaired or replaced everything identified in a recent survey (battery, invertor, lights, etc).  We decided to sleep on it and in the morning after lots of googling boats like it that night for known issues, slip fees, maintenance costs and everything else I could think of we both looked at each other and decided to pull the trigger.  The dealer immediately sent us out on a sea trail which happened to be a near perfect sailing day and we were instantly in love with this enormous boat after getting the sails up.

Under sail

After motoring it out into Sandusky bay, Amy quickly pulled the sails out, killed the motor and attempted to burry the rail in the water.  While the captain attempted to smile, I think it was his first time under sail and he really was not ready for a boat to heel :).  Amy was so in love that she wanted to leave our Allmand there and finish rest the trip with this one.  Turned out paper work takes some time so we left a deposit with plans to pick the boat up the next weekend.  We were now the proud owners of a Beneteau 473.  We headed back down the dock to our old boat and off to Put-in-Bay to finish the rest of our vacation on our much smaller, less shinny, gadget free Allmand 31.  It was a nice sail over and we enjoyed rest the weekend as well as the return trip home with the excitement of a new adventure on the horizon all while scratching our head over what we had just done realizing we were now fleet owners.

Turns out selling the Allmand was pretty easy.  I priced it fairly, provided pictures that showed it in its best light, listed it on a few free sites like Craigslist and sailboatlistings and it sold within a month or so.  I had been worried about selling it in the fall but seems like lots of folks are going to boat shows around that time and are excited to buy a boat or want the winter to work on a project or two.  Its still in our local boat yard for the winter before the new owner takes her to Lake St Clair this spring. I have driven by it a few times to see how she is holding up and fondly think of all the good times our family had on her but so far no regrets.