Training day's

When one purchases a brand new Xquisite the price includes two weeks of training. When one buys a used Xquisite from them it includes a warrantee and one week of training. As we are odd balls we purchased our boat on the used market instead of buying it directly from them. Four reasons we choose this path. 

1. We are lazy and would have had to book a flight to the Bahamas to look at the other four boats they had for sale at the time. 
2. I was not sure how to quantify the value of the warrantee and training that would come with a boat purchased from them. I'm sure if I would have reached out they would have been happy to give me a dollar figure but but we have owned boats before so I did not feel like we needed a full week of training thus we settled on three days to go over systems, get all the sails up, and get some practice docking. The Warrantee part I was not sure how we would use as I felt to truly get the value out of that we should be living on the boat and using it every day to truly figure out what might not be working and frankly that kind of time commitment right now was not in the cards. 
3. This boat was one of the newer boats for sale at the time. Endurance (formerly X-Factor, formally Xquiste) is a 2019 we purchased in spring of 2025 and spec'ed the best of what is currently on the market. The boat came with a large lithium house bank of 1500aH, the extended solar array for 2400W of glass panels, 2 wind generators that are supposed to be good for 700W, 100lb Ultra anchor (I have admired these but am to cheap to ever buy one), and a 2023 Highfeild 390 Sport with 60hp outboard are what really made up the differentiating factors for us. The layout, sail plans, and colors of the others were all the same.
4. I think I got it cheaper on the open market. Frankly I was not really looking for a boat the day we went looking, we saw this one, I made a lowball offer then somehow got it.

Now comes the truly impressive part. Even though we did not buy the boat directly from Xquisite they still welcomed us into their family with open arms. I e-mailed their base in the Bahamas to see if we could pay directly for some training. The response was no problem come on over! I asked about getting a few service items addressed while we were there again no worries we got you, is that all you need fixed. The cherry on top was they had availability for us to dock and leave the boat there for a month and they provide a discounted rate for Xquisite owners making the dock about the cheapest we have found in the Bahamas at a marina I would consider one of the top 5 of any we visited. I'm not sure how many different ones we have visited over the years or even just during our Great Loop but I feel like it's a lot :).

I can confirm that after spending three full days with Travis (our training captain who also runs the Xquisite charter business) we got what we expected and more.. and were almost mentally worn out. I'm not sure I could have absorbed a full week of training. I would hope if one was getting two weeks of training it would be spaced out and broken up a bit. We could have hired a well rated Captain in Fort Lauderdale and frankly it might have saved us some money. But the time spent with Travis was well worth the cost. He knows the boat and its systems, he runs these boats in charter thus knows what breaks, where it is, and what's involved in fixing it. There were not many questions I asked that would stump him but when I did he knew who to call to get the answer. One of the nice things was going over all the areas of the boat that would require regular attention or maintenance and to have that maintenance demonstrated for me. I'll be lucky if I can remember half of the information he went over with us but it certainly was three days well spent! All three of us took turns raising, lowering, and tacking sails followed by a few hours of docking practice. I think all three of us can dock the boat with equal skill for now. While Max did check out for most of the maintaince discussions Amy & I both got a lot out of the systems overviews and how and when to switch to using the various secondary systems. This boat has a lot of redundancy. If the electric shifters fail there is a secondary system and even a third way of working around the issues, same if the hydraulics fail, or if a bilge pump or float switch give up. The thinking that went into the design of this boat and its systems is truly impressive!

If anyone is reading this and thinking about an Xquisite the quality of their team regardless if it's at the restaurant, the service team, training team, or facility is amazing. I can confirm the marketing and what they tell you at the boat show is all real. At this point we have only owned the boat for a little over a week and have spent 5 of those days at the Xquisite Center in Freeport Bahamas. We enjoyed it all and were sad to leave the boat. Unfortunately Max still has 3 weeks of school left of his Junior year then we will be back to bring the boat back to the US and start working it up the East Coast. For now we are leaving it in the service teams capable hands to get some maintenance items addressed.

Time for a shake down cruise

One of the biggest reasons we decided to purchase an Xquisite was for the advertised customer service. When we were at the boat show last year we had a chance to meet the CEO and he gave us a tour of the boat. Based on the looks initially I frankly was not very interested but after talking to him and seeing the thought put into the design and systems we walked away truly impressed. One of the big things he talked about was the fact they would train new owners on the boat, its systems, and even would provide techs to fix the boat regardless of where you were in the world even if the boat was not under warranty they still wanted to be the first person you called when an issue came up. They also had a certified used boat program where the boat came with a 90 day warranty ensuring everything worked and the new owners got a weeks worth of training. So we decided to put this to the test. No we had not purchased a boat from them but it was still an Xquisite would they still service us and provide training?

We exchanged a few e-mails and found out the answer was a resounding YES. Of course we had to pay for it but they were still happy to give us a training captain that knows these boats and would explain all the systems, how to sail it, and teach us to dock it. I enquired about getting a few of the items addressed from our survey and the head of the service department quickly got back with me to prioritize the items and assured me he could get many of them fixed over the 2-3 weeks we wanted to leave the boat there while we went back home with plans to return once Max completed his Junior year on June 13th. 

It seemed a plan was coming together. We had found a cheaper dock, we could get the boat serviced and get a few days of training in all at the Xquisite hub. Now we just needed a few of the basic safety items to use a boat, some food, things to cook it with, and we could be off to the Bahamas for a few days.

We hired the captain that took us out the day before to give us some quick docking training and asked him to come with us to the fuel dock ensuring we didn't get into to much trouble the first day we owned the boat and could get it out of that dock and back in if necessary. He was skilled and a nice guy but I don't think teaching was his thing. Anyway we were successful in getting fuel and now had the confidence to get the boat in and out of the dock. Rest of our time those two days was spent shopping for some basic tools, locating a new steering cable for the dinghy, getting some food, towels, the required basic safety equipment, refilling the propane tanks, etc. Of course we also had to return the rental car and pick Max up from the airport. It was a busy couple of days running around a town we were unfamiliar with.

Saturday morning we got up about 3am and were off the dock by 330 heading to Freeport. Our plan was to motor down the ICW going though 3 bridges to the inlet the cruise ships come in. There was a inlet only a mile away from our dock that only required one bridge but I had read it was at one point considered the most dangerous inlet on the East Coast of the country and Navionics did not seem to have much information on it. On our way out I decided to give it a try as it should save us at least 45 minutes in getting to the Atlantic. What really convinced me was that there was a set of bread crumbs on the chart plotter showing the boat had come this way once before. I figured if I followed those we should be safe right? We called the bridge held the boat in place with no problem until they opened started heading out and attempted to follow the path in the chart plotter. Luckily Max was standing beside me on the side of the boat away from the glow of the electronics as he noticed the sea wall directly infront of us that I surly would have beached boat on following our path (I was probably only 75ft from it). While I had figured out how to dim the 17 inch chart plotter at the helm I had not figured out how to dim the other 4 smaller displays and it turns out this was really limiting my night vision. Not to mention I now did not have much faith in the accuracy of the chart plotter.

Once we got past the inlet it was easy going across the Atlantic. I have never seen an ocean so calm. Unfortunately there would not be much sailing that day but that was ok as the boat was all new to us and it gave us some time to play with the systems, try pulling out the sails, and figure out how to play with some of the gadgets we had not yet tested. We had been making good time along the way and were told not to approach the inlet to the Xquisite center until about 2 hrs before high tide. I stopped the boat and Max & I swam in that beautiful blue water that is usually only associated with post cards. The chart said it was over 2000ft deep but it was incredibly clear. After killing a little time we got back on our way.

On the way in I e-mailed our Xquisite contacts asking where to dock and reminding them this was a new to us boat and that we had little to no experience docking it. Luckily even though it was his day off our soon to be training captain was around and helped guide us into the dock and ensured we were well tied up. Our shake down cruise had been successful. Everything on the boat worked as expected and we had made it in safely.

We bought a boat

After all the frustration and back and forth we were exhausted and tired of negotiations. We booked a flight down to see the boat again, assess the gelcoat repair and check out the new prop ourselves. The brokers sent over a receipt to show one had been purchased as I was not excited about diving on the boat while it was in a canal in front of someones home we agreed to take it out of the dock and try running it to see how it really performed. Seems there was enough contention in this that we again had both brokers, their manager (The president of sales), a captain and a surveyor on board for this little show. It felt like everyone was there to ensure a sale as they all seemed to understand we were done and willing to walk away. The good news is the prop worked.. The bad news is they were not running the same RPM's on the two engines. One engine was 75 to 100 RPM off regardless of how many times we attempted to shift the blades from standard to overdrive and back again. The gelcoat looked ok but needed another coat and maybe a bit of wet sanding to be finished. We agreed to close, we would figure out the prop issue and asked the owners to concede $500 to get the gelcoat guy back out to finish the job. The owners broker agreed I signed the form electronically while we were on our return trip and we now officially owned a really big catamaran.

The next question is now what? We had talked with the fellow (Bill) that owned the house it was in front of. He was willing to let us continue to use the dock for a somewhat reasonable cost (for the area) as long as we wanted. Our insurance company told us we needed to get it out of Florida before July 1st and north of Cumberland Island somewhere. We would like to get it back to Lake Erie but really don't have the time to do a 4000 mile trip with it this summer.

Picture after our purchase with our broker Darla

We decided to do a shake down cruise with it and head over to the Xquisite Center in Freeport Bahamas. We closed on the boat Wednesday night. Booked a flight for Max to come join us Friday and planned to do the 90 mile crossing Saturday if the weather window held out. Luckily we bought the boat as we had not booked a hotel room and Bill was ok if we stayed on the boat for a couple days while we got it ready to leave. Unfortunately living on a boat while docked at a personal residence is frowned upon in the area but Bill understood our situation told us to not make it obvious and do what we needed to do to get ready. He was really friendly and turns out just liked meeting all the boaters that used his dock and hearing about their adventures. He is a pretty interesting guy and I would have liked to get to know him more but unfortunately time was against us and we had arranged for 3 days of training on the boat over in Freeport. So all day Thursday and Friday was spent buying basics like life vests, flares, extra lines, coast guard stickers (to ensure we will pass a safety check), pans, toaster, towels and some basic food. While our purchase contract had stated anything on the boat as of the sea trial would stay with the boat, it seemed the previous owners had ignored that and pulled a bunch of stuff off the boat that we now had to reinventory and replace. I figure they probably took about 1-2k worth of stuff. During our survey we had taken pictures of everything on board as we had been been surprised by how much the previous owners of our tug took off the boat (including the furniture, manuals, and pictures of the boat being built) but at this point I was just done and because we only brought an overnight bag with us we got to buy all this stuff new that we also already have on our Tug back at home :(. I don't feel like we are contentious buyers but this is the second boat we have purchased that was just a pain in the rear to get to the finish line even with two full time experienced professional boat brokers moderating the tone. Maybe it is us.. guess if it happens a 3rd time we are probably the problem :)