We got an update from our broker for the sail boat on Friday that the new prop had come in and a diver was scheduled to put it on Saturday. Yay... Maybe we will close on the new boat on the 13th like we planned. Saturday the next call comes in from the broker letting us know the diver that was supposed to put the new prop on canceled and that the owner had decided to put the prop on himself ensuring we would make the closing date. We said ok but wanted to ensure our surveyor or someone could stop by the boat and at least check it out for us after he let us know the job was completed. I also requested a receipt for the prop. We called the surveyor and he said no problem it was not a busy week for him, he could stop by almost any day to check it out. I tentatively asked him to plan for some time Thursday to stop by start the engines put the boat in gear under load at the dock a couple times ensuring the prop wouldn't magically spin off again and that there truly was a prop there. Monday about lunch time I get the call that all went well have your guy come check it out we are ready to close. With my brokers help we move up the surveyors schedule and hope for the best. Meanwhile I spent about half the day Monday, getting the final payment transferred, the required registration forms completed, insurance finalized, and started on booking some plane tickets so we could spend the night on our new boat, go though the various boxes of spares on board, look at what tools might still be on it, safety equipment and hopefully start a few projects ensuring we will be ready to start moving the boat north in mid June. At this point I've done everything but sign the final closing paperwork that was sent over late in the afternoon. About 5pm I get a call from the surveyor reporting that he thinks they put the wrong prop on as one engine is rev'ing at a significantly different RPM then the other while under the same load and while he was there he noticed some new dock rash the boat had acquired since our survey. Ugh... is about all I could say. Guess we won't be closing tomorrow after all :(
I understand accidents happen and the dock rash is not horrible. If it happened to me I would most likely be frustrated and simply plan to have it addressed at the end of the season. If it happened when I was under contract selling the boat I would have reported it and made immediate plans to get it addressed. What bugs me most is that it's in a obvious place that is easily seen when getting on or off the boat making me reasonably sure the current owner knew it happened and just hoped to ignore it leaving it as a surprise to me when I got there. Between this and that it seems almost no maintenance has been done to the boat under their ownership is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth probably compounded somewhat by the fact that the rumor is they are very difficult to work with. I hate to back out of this over something as trivial as the wrong prop being put on and some dock rash but we are starting to think about it. Anyway we have punted both concerns over to the sellers and will see what they come back with. I have an idea what may be going on with the prop but as I've never had a fancy folding prop am not sure and will wait to see what they have to say. Good thing I could not find my FF number and thus didn't get the tickets booked this afternoon when I was originally looking at flights.
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