Survey Day

I was surprised when I called to set up the survey that he thought it could be completed in one day. For me this was the most complicated boat I've owned and seemed huge. Heck our Tug took the guy two days to survey partially due to weather and partially due to the marina and their haul out scheduling. We decided to fly in the night before as Amy had to work. Long story short our flight got delayed and we didn't get to our hotel until about 3:30am. Our survey started at 8am.. So we got a solid three hours of sleep that night. Overall the day went pretty smoothly. A rep from Just Catamarans was there for the sellers, our broker (also with Just Cats) was there, along with the surveryer, as was a captain the owners hired to take us to the haul out and test sail. The captain thing was new to me but he was very friendly and talked us through all of the maneuvers he was doing with the boat. With past boat purchases the sellers broker has generally been a certified captain and was the one to take us for test sails.

Anyway we left the dock at about 8:30am. It took us about 3hrs going up the ICW to get to Just Cats where the boat was hauled. Our surveyor wondered about the boat testing everything as I stuck my head in every nook and cranny. Meanwhile our broker and Amy went though and inventoried everything on the listing to ensure it was actually on the boat. The only items we found missing were the Dometic portable freezer and a cover for the dinghy. The sellers have promised to return the freezer and claim the cover is on the boat somewhere. Overall the boat seemed to be in pretty good shape. Seems I always have rose colored glasses on the first time I see a boat and this one was no different. I noticed more wear items like crazing on the hatches more stains on the flexi teak deck and other items that are normally associated with a used boat. 

Going through Miami is always interesting. There are so many folks with expensive things there. The number of mega yachts amazes me. As we were passing the huge "ships" our 50ft Cat was looking really small. Along the way we also spotted dolphins which Amy took as a good sign and is generally her favorite thing to see while on any boat other than maybe whales! When we got to the marina our boat started to feel pretty big again. Going down the channel felt somewhat narrow when passing another big cat and then I won't even mention how big the boat felt in the marina. I was glad we had a captain that I could hand over the controls to that had done this before as I'm not sure I would have made one of the tight turns required to get into the haul out. Posting a link here to the video Just Cats posted showing us coming in.

Once out our surveyor did the usual thing tapping around with his hammer giving the boat a good visual inspection pointing out that it was time for some maintenance on the folding props and that one of the four underwater lights was not working. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the boat only had 2 or 3 underwater sea cocks. Our broker took me up to the office pointed me to the person I needed to pay for the haul out and then they dropped the boat back in the water. The whole process probably took less than an hour for a 50ft boat.

Once back in the water our surveyor went up the mast to do a rigging check. This was new as in the past I've had to hire both a surveyor and a rigger and sometimes even a desiel mechanic to check the engines. This guy did it all from rigging to systems to pulling the oil samples on the engines & sail drives.

After he completed the rigging check we headed out the channel, hoisted the sails and finally cut the engines. The boat seemed to sail pretty easily but the unusual part was the feeling at sea. It doesn't really roll like are used to in both our Tug and mono hauls. I don't know how to describe it yet but it just was not that relaxing fluid feeling I was used to. The other strange part was that I had set a cup of coffee down in the morning and when I came back in the afternoon it was still in the same spot I left it. Amazing! 

Performance. This is an area I really have no clue about. What does seem quantifiable to me is that waterline equals speed and weight will slow you down. All the other stuff seems like more of an art than repeatable science but I'm sure a true saltly racer would say I'm insaine. We got the boat out on the water sailing under the full main, deployed the storm jib then furled that back in then unfuling what I would call a big gennaker. It appeared we were on the edge of the Gulf Stream but even with that extra speed taken out we were doing about half the speed of the wind. I'm sure we could have done some sail tweaking to get more but overall I was happy. Our captain reassured me that we were doing well & it was a reasonable amount of speed compared to what he sees with the Leopard's, FP's, etc. I should have asked to hoist the wingaker sail that was in a sock in the sail locker but wimped out. Guess we will save that surprise for another time.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet but we are completely new to catamarans. We have talked to lots of owners, sellers, walked around them on boat shows, and watched a lot of YouTube about them but have never really sailed on one other then a short day trip on a sunset cruise in Maui about 25yrs ago. So this was really our first experence on a cat... Yea I know maybe we should have done that before we went under contract to buy one.. but that has never really been our style. Prior to buying our 31ft Almond we had never sailed a small boat before. Prior to buying our 47 we had not been out on anything like it. So I guess why not find something that works layout wise and decide to love the one you're with. We know we are not performance sailors and in the past have enjoyed the comfort/forgivingness of the big heavy cruisers so following that theme we are sticking with it again.

On our way back to the inlet the Captain reved up the engine and ran them at full speed for a bit. He noticed a power fall off one one engine and between him and the surveyor decided that we may have lost a prop or most likely that deferred prop maintenance by the seller was now coming back to haunt us. Needless to say he was a bit dismayed to be coming back on one engine. I'm not sure if its just because he is only used to driving catamarans or maybe they really don't perform like my single engine sailboats/tug but he was convinced using the steering wheel coming into the dock would not help us. The team had discussed dropping the dinghy and pushing the front of the boat in but it seems the steering cables are frozen and would not allow the outboard to steer. When I suggested he turn the wheel hard over and give the engine power the boat did react but he seemed reluctant to use this method so I walked to the back of the boat to work lines. After a lot of messing around he did finally get it into the dock and frankly I think I could have gotten it in just as well if not better in this case but it was not my responsibility that day and we had the privilege of just being passenger's.

It was about 4:30 when we tied to the dock. We pulled the sellers rep in and got the debrief from the Surveyor. Honestly the list was a lot longer than we had expected. Going into this thinking it's a 6 year old boat that looked like it had been maintained. Well it appears the current owners bought it in June of 23. Used it until January of 25 and probably did not do much to it over that year and a half they lived on it, then let it sit for the next four months waiting for it to sell. Prior to the current owners there were a fair amount of records showing maintenance being done. Fortunately there was nothing structurally wrong with the boat but the list of little things was quite extensive. Items like all eight float switches in the bilges were not working, four of the five AC units were failing, water in the sail drives, a dead dive compressor, anchor chain that is ready to be replaced, a through haul not working, deffered engine maintenance, etc. While some of those are bigger than others (and there are many more on the list I have not mentioned) each adds up pretty quick. We asked for some concessions and told their representative they needed to get the propulsion system addressed. We said our goodby's and headed off to find some food, much needed sleep, then flew home the next day eager to hear what the sellers position would be.