Letter: The Great International Yacht Buying Adventure of 2015

I’m not addicted to buying sailboats. I can quit any time I want. OK, so yes, my computer opens up to a Yachtworld search result every time I access the Internet, but that doesn’t mean I’m addicted. And that other Craigslist search for sailboats that opens every time, that is just there to help me stay in touch with the market trends. It doesn’t mean I am addicted!

And when my wife mentioned that this might be the year that we buy our last boat, it is merely a coincidence that we had an offer on a boat up in Canada about two weeks later. This story ends with the delivery journey from Sidney, BC, to slip B-25 in Swantown, Olympia, with a wonderful new, to us sailboat that is our dream come true. This is the tale of the adventure that came free with the purchase of the boat.

I have been watching the market for used sailboats for many years. I have occasionally stumbled up on a deal that is just too good to be true. A doctor buys a boat for her husband only to find out he doesn’t like sailing, so she needs to get rid of it. Or a skipper in Wolf Creek Montana decides that getting along with his wife is really important and the boat has to go. On three occasions I have jumped on these under-priced deals, sailed the boats for a few years while I fixed them up, and then sold them for a better price than I paid. Our goal was to work up to a nice cruising boat that we can enjoy in our retirement.

I spotted the deal in Canada on a Hunter 36 not long after Dee Ann had acknowledged that she was ready to take the plunge to a bigger boat. (If you want to know how to motivate this action, buy your wife a water ballasted boat.) It had been several years since we had been on a Hunter 36, and it was actually a little bigger than what I thought I wanted, but it seemed to be a close match for the features we had on our wish list, and the price seemed unbelievably low.

It turns out that the price was low because the Canadian exchange rate is very much in our favor right now. Yachtworld doesn’t tell you this, but it displays the prices in US dollars based on an estimate of what the price will be after the exchange rate. So this boat was showing up with a price that appeared to be 20% below the market value for that boat, and about 25% less than the price of two similar boats that sold last summer in Seattle.

"Hey Honey, how would you like to take a trip to Canada to look at a boat?" The invitation sounded innocent enough. Dee Ann loves to travel, and she will do almost anything to get me out of the house for a road trip. And we weren’t going to buy. We were just going to look! After all, I’m not addicted to buying boats.

I contacted the broker and talked a bit about the process of buying a boat in Canada and importing it to the US. He made it sound incredibly easy. There is just a little paperwork to fill out and a few extra small fees to pay, and bingo! You have a new boat. That sounded easier than getting through Dana Passage with the tide behind you, so we started making plans for the trip.

The broker suggested that we should settle on a price before we come up, that way we will know exactly what we are dealing with and won’t have to get into a bunch of haggling after we see the boat. He told me the value of an offer that he had just turned down, and told me what his "magic number" was to guarantee a sale. That sent me into a flurry of research on exchange rates because he was talking Canadian prices. I was proud of my wife for wanting to offer a real low figure, but I was starting to think that this might be "the" boat, so I put together a figure that was real close, but slightly under, the magic number.

The broker (Greg Horne of Custom Yacht Sales in Sidney, BC) responded immediately with a surprising response. He said "Let’s keep this easy for you and let’s do the whole deal in US dollars. I’ll take my chances on any fluctuations in the exchange rate, and that way you don’t have to worry about the additional fees for currency exchange." He then quoted me a price that was way better than anything I had ever seen in the states for the same boat. I mean, I have paid less for new cars than the money I could be saving on this deal! We had our price.

The next stop was the bank. I have researched boat loan rates several times and I always found the best rate at one particular credit union. I was not a member of said credit union, but that should be easy to solve. We went in to the closest branch and opened a savings account and talked to the nice people about the boat we wanted to buy. We explained that the boat is in Canada and that IF we decided to buy it, we would be importing it to the US. No problem! They did an instant credit check and printed us a letter of pre-approval and we were on our way. (By the way, if you are one of those people who tell me, "I have never borrowed money for a boat", you make me sick with envy.)

In the week that followed I was accused of sounding as if I had already decided to buy this boat that I hadn’t even seen yet. I worked hard to correct my sentences to sound more tentative in future conversations, but the accusations continued. In other cases this might be a symptom of addiction, but I (as you know) am not addicted to buying sailboats.

If you haven’t been on the Coho ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, add it to your bucket list. It is a wonderful journey on an historic vessel and it is one of the unique experiences available around the northwest region. We picked Valentine’s weekend for the trip up to see the boat. The Black Ball ferry line had a Valentine’s weekend special for the ferry with a room in a Victorian hotel that included a box of chocolates and two bottles of champagne. What more could I ask for? (Three days, two nights, car ferry, for less than $100 per day. It really was a good deal.)

The last time we traveled to Canada we remembered that it was harder to get back into the US than it was to get into Canada. We have upgraded our travel documents since then, and the US entrance was absolutely painless. The Canadians have stepped up their game a little and we did have to successfully pass an interview to get in. But from the looks of things, everyone was passing the test.

We had to do some quick studying on the fine print on the speedometer of the car so we would know how to interpret the speed and distance on the Canadian road signs. Here’s the answer: When it says 80, you go 50. When it says 90, you go 55. The road signs spell it out for the tourists who land at Sidney, but we didn’t see any US translations of the speed signs where we landed in Victoria.

Greg told us we could arrive any time. The boat would be unlocked. Feel free to stay as long as you like and check it out. We showed up at the marina before 9:00, and a nice caretaker in long pajamas and a wool cap came out and unlocked the gate for us. Sometimes visiting Canada can make you feel like you are in old England. This was one of those moments.

The boat looked marvelous. But given that all of my previous experience was with trailer-sailor yachts and outboard motors, we didn’t really know what we were looking at. The boat looked and felt like all the vessels we toured at the recent Seattle Boat Show, only this time there were no crowds. Greg had arranged for a pilot to take us on a sea trial in the afternoon, and we were excited to get to take the boat out and see how she performed.

We felt unprepared for the sea trial. This was an area we had not experienced before, and it hadn’t come up in our research. Our pilot was an experienced off-shore cruiser and a racer, and he was able to describe the boat in terms of why it was a poor excuse for off-shore cruising and racing, which made for an interesting discussion. As we put the boat through her paces we made some worthwhile discoveries. The furling gear on the jib and the main were both binding, apparently from lack of use. The winches were all dragging, which we found out later was also from a lack of use. The boat was in pristine condition in part because after 11 years it had only seen about 300 hours of motoring. It reminded me of a joke my Dad likes to tell about a speech he heard from a used car salesman. It’s about a car that was owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays and never took it off the blacktop. This boat had spent the first 11 years of its life in the fresh water of Lake Coeur d’Alene. I think of it like finding a car hidden away in a barn and almost never driven. Except this one isn’t an antique.

When we got back to the marina I noticed that we had picked up about 2 inches of water in the bilge. We added that to the list of things that we had discovered and handed them to Greg. No problem! They scheduled a service call with the best local rigging company in town and they would be right down to go through the whole rig. And the water in the bilge was probably from a stuffing box that needed adjustment.

Our trip ended with high hopes and glorious expectations that we may have just found "the" boat for our retirement dreams. We came back up to visit our future dream boat for a few hours the next morning and then went back to Olympia to continue our email negotiations.

"We don’t make loans for international purchases."

I called the bank to ask a few questions about next steps. I needed to know what had to be done to move our loan application forward, now that we had an accepted offer and we liked the boat. "We don’t make loans for international purchases." What? But the nice people who printed my pre-approval letter said it would be no problem! "We don’t make loans for international purchases." What?

to be continued next month I "We don’t make loans for international purchases." just spent a long weekend in a luxury hotel in Canada because YOU said I could borrow money to buy this boat! "We don’t make loans for international purchases." But I am importing the boat to the US. You won’t be lending any money on it until AFTER it arrives in the country. "We don’t make loans for international purchases."

Dee Ann took this as a good thing. She wanted to go to her favorite bank anyway.

It was now time to get serious about learning what it takes to import a boat form Canada to the US. Being a penny pincher by nature, I wanted to avoid spending extra money for a Customs Broker if I could possibly import the boat myself. How hard could it be? I should have plenty of time to do the research and fill out all the necessary paperwork.

The Customs office at Friday Harbor is very friendly on the phone during the slow season in mid February. I spoke with Thomas Barnes who sent me the requirements for self-importation of a boat from Canada. They are as follows:

1. The owner must be on board the vessel when entering the United States.

2. Proof of ownership such as a bill of sale with Bona Fide value.

3. Evidence of origin: ONLY if the officer is unable to make a determination with the information provided.

4. Registration, if applicable.

5. Proof the boat conforms to EPA Standards. Complete Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Engine Declaration Form 3530-21. US Vessels do not require EAP Form.

Here’s where the fun starts. Canada has a similar set of regulations. The first rule in Canada is

1. The new owner must NOT be on board the vessel when it leaves Canadian waters.

I found out later just how insanely complicated this particular rule gets. It has a lot to do with which country the transaction is occurring in and who gets to collect the taxes. If the new owner gets on the boat in Canada, then the transaction happened there, and I have to pay 12% in Canadian sales taxes (there is more than one, it’s complicated) and then pay 8% Washington sales tax. (Did I mention I was saving 20% on the exchange rate?) Not only that, but we had to be very mindful of our conversation so we didn’t accidentally give the impression to Customs that the delivery pilot was working for me. The pilot works for and is paid by the yacht broker or seller. If I accidentally gave the impression that he was working for me, the delivery pilot could get in trouble for working in the US without a work visa. This little issue has gotten other delivery pilots put on a list and banned from future entries into the US.

But wait, there’s more! The proof that the boat conforms to EPA standards seemed easy enough. It amounts to filling out a form that promises that the engine in the boat is the engine that was originally designed to be in the boat when it was manufactured. Someone in the US is very particular about keeping customized engines out of the country. And if the boat was manufactured in the US it is exempt from this requirement because it is just coming home anyway.

The tricky bit is the evidence of origin. I have to prove (with an authorized form filled out by the manufacturer) that my Hunter sailboat was made in the USA. And there is that tricky little statement that says, "ONLY if the officer is unable to make a determination with the information provided." I explained to my new guide (Officer Thomas) that Hunter sailboats are all manufactured in Florida. Would that be enough proof for "the officer" to let me get a passing grade on that particular test question? My short interpretation to his answer is that it depends on who is working on the day you come in. Officer Thomas explained that if everything is in order when I arrive, I can self-import in about an hour. But if one of the five requirements is not met, I may be delayed a day, or I may be held up for an indefinite period of time.

Since it appeared that there would be a strong chance I could not be on the boat when it arrived (Can I just jump on before it touches the dock? – NO) and that I might get stuck in an international scandal by not having proof that my Hunter was made in America, I elected to use the Customs Broker approach. Officer Thomas forwarded me a list of Customs Brokers and I started to make some calls. (And for what it’s worth, the Customs Broker found the evidence of origin form we needed.)

What I didn’t know at this time was that I didn’t need to worry about finding a Customs Broker because Greg Horne at Custom Yacht Sales already has all the connections! But without that key piece of knowledge I called five Customs Brokers only to discover that there is only one such company that handles yacht sales. The bid for my transaction came in at just over $700. About $300 of that was for a bond, and now that I see the intricacy of the transaction, I understand why. The boat has to be successfully entered into the US before the bank will release the funds. If anything goes wrong during the importation process there could be lots of legal questions about whose boat it is at that moment in time. So the bond sounded like a good idea.

As it turns out, Greg Horne at Custom Yachts has always wanted to invest in a reusable bond that would cover all of his clients, so he stepped up and saved me $300 by buying a bond.

So, now we have an accepted offer on a boat we like, and we have determined that the self-importation of a boat is not worth starting an international conflict, it is time to get back to the bank and find a surveyor. The bank asked that the surveyor have one of two certifications, SAMS or NAMS.

NAMS is the National Association of Marine Surveyors, Inc. SAMS is the Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors. Both of these organizations sounded as if they might be very American in focus, and I was right. There was only one marine surveyor on Vancouver Island who holds a NAMS certification.

Meet Dr. Death

One piece of advice I have heard repeatedly about buying a yacht is that you should not ask the selling agent to recommend a surveyor. You need to make the decision yourself to avoid any conflicts of interest, and to make sure you get an honest survey. When I explained to Greg that my surveyor would be Kenneth Rorison, he groaned a little and then informed me that I had made a good choice. Kenneth is his probably the toughest surveyor on that part of Vancouver Island. I learned later from conversations around the boatyard that Kenneth has the nickname "Dr. Death", because his tenacious attention to detail is thought to have killed more boat deals than any other surveyor on the island. And it turns out that Kenneth is aware of his reputation and his moniker. He says he thinks he started hearing it in the 70’s. When I shared with Ken that I had been advised to avoid a surveyor who was friends with the selling broker he immediately retorted, "I don’t have many friends who are yacht brokers." And now I know why. I was convinced I had the right surveyor for the job when Greg told me, "He is the one I would hire to do my boat."

In all fairness, Kenneth is not a "deal killer". It is the condition of the boat that will kill a deal, not a surveyor. The position of a surveyor is to advise the client of the deficiencies found. It is the client’s decision whether or not to purchase the vessel based on that information. Kenneth’s tenacious approach to his work makes him the kind of surveyor you want to hire when you are the one buying a boat.

I had hoped to be able to avoid a second trip to the island, but Kenneth convinced me I should be there in case he found anything interesting in the survey. The favorable exchange rate was causing the only US certified marine surveyor to get booked up, and my choice was to be there on the following Monday (he just had a cancellation), or take his next opening in a month. Greg agreed that we should grab the Monday opening. Dee Ann and I made quick arrangements for another long weekend, and we started making plans for our second quick trip across the border.

I was happy to learn that the Royal Scot hotel had extended the Valentine’s special to accommodate the guys who had to provide "make up trips" in the weeks that followed Valentine’s Day. We were able to book another great stay at the hotel with discount ferry fares and two more bottles of champagne.

Most of the arrangements for the purchase so far had been made through email. It seemed that my word was accepted as a bond, and we didn’t have to worry about the earnest money deposit until later. Dee Ann and I wanted to make an earnest money deposit, and Greg came to our rescue once again as he explained a tricky trap at the border. Both countries have a rule that says you cannot travel across the border with financial instruments that total more than $10,000 in value. We were about to attempt to cross the border with a certified check for $8,000. No problem, right? Wrong! Our travel with the funds would be legal as we left the US with $8,000. But the moment we arrived in Canada the exchange rate would inflate the value of our check to be over the $10,000 limit in Canadian funds. The Canadian border patrol would have the right to seize the funds and take the assets without any due process and the money would be lost. Greg offered us a choice of making a wire transfer or negotiating a smaller amount. We saved the wire transfer fees and accepted Greg’s offer for a smaller deposit.

And Greg was right. When the Canadian border officer heard that we were coming back into the country to purchase a boat, he asked us repeatedly how much money we had with us. Then he spoke very slowly and asked, "If you added up all of the financial instruments that you have in your possession, is there any chance that they could total up to be worth more than $10,000 Canadian?" "No" I replied. "We specifically negotiated an amount that would not exceed the allowable limit." He let us pass. He asked us a few more questions about where I worked and what I did for a living. I suppose he wanted to see if I had a well-rehearsed back story.

Hauling Out

The survey was another new and interesting experience for us. We didn’t know quite what to expect, but we were pretty convinced that Kenneth was on our side and we would soon be making an informed decision based on the quality of the boat. Greg arranged the short lift haul out to happen at 11:00 am, which meant Ken would have two hours to look at the hull, because the lift operators would go to lunch at 12:00. Ken went to work sounding the hull with his hammer, and went right to a few of the places that were typically known for trouble on production sailboats. He started to find some small voids in the fiberglass that two different individuals referred to as a "Hunter trademark". Those would be easy to fix with some resin injection, and they were not in critical locations.

Then he found a show stopper. There was a large void in the glass near the keel joint. It might be nothing. It might just be a separation in the layers of fiberglass (which is not an unusual byproduct of the manufacturing process used for production hulls). Or it might be a vulnerability at a very important part of the hull structure. We wouldn’t know for sure if this void was a threat to the integrity of the hull unless the area was opened up and inspected.

Greg stepped in and volunteered to assume all responsibility for the remainder of the survey and any expenses required to satisfy Ken that the hull was sound. Since this was our first yacht survey in a foreign country, Dee Ann and I weren’t sure what the proper response was supposed to be, so we said, "OK". We went into the marina office and paid for the short lift, and waited to see what transpired between the surveyor and our yacht broker.

The surveyor suggested we start asking around the boat yard to see if there were any fiberglass repair people interested in writing a bid for the work. We had an interesting conversation with a salty old soul who was very courteous and friendly until he heard that we just wanted an estimate. If we weren’t going to be buying anything, we could have a nice day! The boat yard was so busy that all the shops were tied up for the next few months, so Greg redirected his "boat guy" from the brokerage to interrupt his current projects and work on the Hunter.

We ended our second trip to the island with a return trip to a wonderful Irish pub in downtown Victoria and then made our way back to Olympia where we monitored the repair progress from a distance and finalized the plans for the delivery and importation of the vessel.

We called several friends and offered an all-expense paid trip to Friday Harbor, but we didn’t find many takers. We eventually had a short list of family and coworkers who were willing to step up if no one else would. The delivery date was set for Friday the 13th of March. Our son and daughter-in-law scrambled to find sleep-overs for the kids and served as our taxi driver.

All of the repairs were progressing as scheduled. The last piece of the puzzle was the bank. We were still waiting to hear that the loan was ready for signature. The new bank had no trouble with the international nature of the transaction, but they also had no experience with it either. And our bank had decided to do away with the loan specialists that sit behind a desk and instead handle all the business through the tellers that work the front counter. This didn’t go too badly, except every time we had a question they had to call someone upstairs to ask. After doing this a few times we really wished we could just go upstairs and meet the mystery person who had all the answers, because that is what we really needed. We dealt with three different people over the course of the application and approval process, and we were able to educate each of them on all of the intricacies of an international boat purchase, changing the country of registry, changing the title and registration, hiring a pilot, and all those details that we were now all too familiar with. They assured me that everything would be ready in time for the delivery. And, thanks to overnight delivery and wire transfers, it was.

The delivery skipper would be bringing the boat from Sidney, BC, to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. We were arriving by car ferry the same day. I padded the schedule with an extra hour that morning so that we wouldn’t miss the ferry, and that was a good thing. Everyone was just a little too excited, and my back seat directions were not sufficient to prevent us from getting lost a couple of times on the way to the ferry. But the ride over was nice, and the ferry landing is right at the Friday Harbor marina where we were to meet the boat.

I noticed our soon-to-be new boat sitting at the customs dock. I enquired inside the Customs Office to ask if the boat had been checked in yet, and I was met with a very official response indicating that he was not allowed to divulge such sensitive information, and would I please go wait outside. He was very polite and professional, and we were happy to comply. The check in process went fast and smooth. The Customs Broker had delivered all of the required paperwork the day before and it was a very brief filing process for the skipper, along with a $19 fee. This was when the delivery skipper called the broker and gave him the entry number from customs, the broker called the title company to confirm the delivery, and the title company released the funds. We are boat owners!

But we can’t get away from the dock without yet another small complication. My phone was ringing with a Canadian number. It was Greg. He forgot to give the cabin keys to the delivery skipper! We hatched a plan that had the delivery skipper take a taxi to Roche Harbor to meet Greg in a speed boat. The driver would then get a ride home with Greg and the keys would come back with the taxi driver. After mulling over the options we finally decided to just borrow our kid’s car and drive the skipper out to Roche Harbor ourselves. Once there we bought lunch for him and Greg and retrieved the wayward keys.

Now all we had to do was get home. Olympia is a mere 120 nautical miles from Friday Harbor. The only thing standing in our way now was a weather forecast that indicated gale warnings with south winds over 40 knots and waves over 6 feet. The first leg of the trip took us right across the wide open Strait of Juan de Fuca. It didn’t sound like a good place for a new boat owner to be in an unfamiliar boat, so we said goodbye to our kids and waited out the weather in Friday Harbor that Saturday. Sunday was supposed to be much calmer.

I didn’t sleep much Saturday night. I woke up periodically and checked the weather forecast, and I woke up Dee Ann after the 3:00 am update indicated that another gale was on the way. My vote was to stay in safe harbor one more day, but Dee Ann was sure we could make it. "It isn’t supposed to be here until 4:00. Didn’t you say we can be across by 1:00?" She was right. The weather forecast was changing every day and the weather windows seemed to be getting shorter. So we were up before first light. We were warming the engine as dawn appeared, and we were pushing away from the dock as soon as we could see our way through the breakwater at Friday Harbor.

The tide was kind to us and started pushing in our direction just where we needed it most, at the south end of the San Juan Channel. Slightly more than an hour had passed and we were now poking our nose out into the mist covered Strait of Juan de Fuca. To say I was a little anxious would be an understatement. I had tried to read up as much as I could about crossing the Straits. My attempts to research favorite routes and routine weather patterns seemed to always take me to stories of Coast Guard helicopter rescues in high winds and rough seas. There is no shortage of disaster stories from this particular passage. We were well prepared, but all of my planning for contingencies had me thinking about the many different ways we could fail, rather than just enjoying the trip. I was a little concerned that I would have to learn how to bleed a fuel line for the first time while pitching and rolling in 6 foot seas. Dee Ann snapped a picture of me as we were entering the Strait and about to lose sight of land. I don’t recall feeling as anxious as that picture would imply. But wow, that guy looks freaked out!

"Hey Jim, how does it feel to be taking your first big boat on your first crossing of the Strait of Juan de Fuca ahead of an approaching gale?"

You know you are a geek when your primary navigation instrument is an Apple iPad. The boat came to us without a chart plotter, so we installed Navionics on the iPad and used it to find our way. I was very impressed with the iPad as a chart plotter. It acquired satellite signals almost instantly and appeared to be very accurate. We followed the east side of the shipping lanes southward and gave a wide berth to Smith Island. Visibility was about 3 or 4 miles, and we saw one or two ships and a couple of fishermen as we made it across. We had 2 to 3 feet of swell and a following breeze of 10 to 15 knots. We were both starting to relax by the halfway point, and we took turns at the helm as we continued south at about 6.5 knots.

Dee Ann snapped a few pictures of Port Townsend as we approached. We have visited by car on numerous occasions, and this was our first approach by sea. The entrance to the boat basin is narrow and shallow. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know if there was an offset programmed into the depth sounder. We never saw less than 17 feet, so I felt confident we were OK.

The skies opened up and it started to rain just as we were approaching the fuel dock. I don’t know if Hunter planned for northwest weather when they did this, but I’m sure that having the stern rail seat over the fuel inlet helped keep some of the rain water out of the fuel tank.

The marina office was closed as it was Sunday afternoon, so finding a slip was a bit like camping. There was a bulletin board at the head of the fuel dock with a list of available slips and their prices. The fuel attendant explained that you just pick the slip you want, drop your money in the payment box, and cross the slip off the list so that it doesn’t get double booked. That sounded easy enough.

The first problem we had was writing the check in the pouring down rain. It rained so hard that afternoon that it actually set a single day record for rainfall. The payment envelope was dissolving in my hands as I was attempting to place our soggy check in it. Do I really need to lick it to seal it in these conditions? I don’t think so.

We picked a slip that showed both sides were open. We thought this would be the best for us because this would be only the second time I had attempted to put this boat into a slip, and the first time I did it I was being coached by an instructor. We thought it would be a good idea to go into the slip that provided us the widest possible margin for error. This slip had no neighbor, so it was our first choice. Our boat was already rigged for a starboard side tie, so we crossed that one of the list and memorized the number of turns we needed to make as we wound our way back to the slip in the pouring rain.

The Port Townsend marina is a very tight fit. There are several single file lanes that must be negotiated. There was almost no traffic, and for that we were very happy. We wound our way into the back of the marina and as we rounded the last corner and hunted up the numbers we discovered that there was someone in our slip! Someone had come in like we did, but failed to cross the number off the list. It was a long way back to the fuel dock, so we decided that I would try to hold the boat in the lane while Dee Ann re-rigged for a port side tie. Her fingers were getting cold from the elements and she was moving slowly on the knots. After a few minutes I could see that she had most of the lines in place, and a favorable breeze twisted the bow and lined us up with the slip. "I’m lined up perfect. Is it OK with you if I go in?" She said yes, so I edged us slowly forward.

Our new neighbor must have seen our dilemma and felt a twinge of guilt for snatching our spot, as he came out in the pouring rain without a jacket. Without saying a word, he caught the bow line, tied it off, and disappeared back into his boat. Dee Ann tied the spring line, I cleated the stern line and killed the engine. It was about that time that I realized I had just put my 12 foot wide boat into a 13 1/2 foot space! It turns out that my neighbor was also a little over sized for the slip.

Embarrassing Picture #2

We were snug in the slip by about 1:30 in the afternoon. The gale started to blow at about 3:00, and it rocked us through the night. We tried out the forced air furnace and stayed nice and warm. Neither one of us realized how tired we were. We hadn’t slept much the night before, and standing up against the rolling swell for 5 hours had worn us out. Dee Ann had commented about how tired I looked as we were eating our late lunch.

A few moments later I thought I heard snoring. I looked up from my chart. Like a toddler asleep in a high chair, Dee Ann had passed out while playing a game and managed a perfect face plant in her iPad! And she said I looked tired!

"Um, dear? I think you fell asleep."

Prop Walk!

The next morning brought us a beautiful sunrise. I couldn’t resist taking a picture, even though I had to look through our neighbor’s canvas awning that was only about 12 inches from our rub rail to see the colors. It was our first colorful sunrise on the new boat. I needed a picture of that to go with my sunset collection.

Things happen on occasion for a cruising couple that allow us to come together as a team as we react to suddenly unexpected events. We talked through the process of casting off so that we both knew what our parts would be. Dee Ann would cast off the lines and make sure they were not dragging in the water and I would apply gentle reverse thrust and back us out of our very tight slip. The boat, however, had a different idea. The lines were cast off and pulled on board. And as I applied reverse thrust the boat decided that instead of going backward, it would just spin to starboard! I gained an instant appreciation for the large cockpit and the open decks of the Hunter 36. We were both able to scramble effortlessly and run the length of the boat and prevent a collision. Dee Ann instinctively called out for the boat hook, hoping to grab a cleat on the dock and stop our rotation. "I can’t exactly give it up" was my reply. I was already using it to fend us off from the neighbor. Those extra fenders that we put out "just in case" almost got put to work. As I am running up to catch us near the shrouds I am thinking to myself, "I think I found neutral. I sure hope that I found neutral!"

Our teamwork was effective. We had a scare, but no collision. The boat started to ease out of the slip and soon I had the ability to steer. I remember an instructor telling me that if backing seems to be giving you a better angle to get out, then just keep going backwards. Everyone will think you planned it that way. In our debrief we decided that next time we are in a similar situation we will let go the bow line after the boat starts to move. That way we can control the boat’s desire to spin because of the prop walk.

We thought we could cover the next 90 miles in three days of motoring. We set our sights on Kingston and pulled out an hour before the tide. It was Monday. We contemplated waiting for the office to open so we could go in and ask about getting the night credited to our reciprocal moorage rights, but my oversized neighbor was flying an out-of-town burgee and we figured he probably already had it claimed.

The current was slightly stronger than predicted, but it eventually turned and gave us a 1 1/2 knot boost. Today was to be the best weather for the trip. The next storm would arrive on Tuesday. The skies became lighter and the breeze continued to pick up as we pressed southward. We made Kingston by 1:00 pm and agreed it was too early to stop. The weather forecast told us that we would be pressing into a 15 knot headwind on Tuesday, so we wanted to go as far as we could. We now had filtered sunshine and probably 7 knots of north wind helping us along. I say 7 knots, because it had the effect of keeping the cockpit full of diesel exhaust. I know it smells like perfume to some, but I’m still new at this diesel stuff and I wasn’t enjoying it that much yet.

We had been reluctant to open the sails before now because the rig gave us some trouble during the sea trial. We had it worked on before the trip, but it was still untested. The constant exhaust smell convinced me that we had enough of a tailwind to keep the jib full, so we rolled it out. Dee Ann was so thrilled to see the sail that she momentarily abandoned her post as the sheet tender and started taking pictures and texting them to the kids. "Put down your phone, dear. We’re sailing! We can send the pictures later!"

The jib came out about the time we could see the Seattle skyline. It stayed out for the rest of the day. Our new target was Blake Island, directly west of Seattle. The wind had picked up to the 10 to 15 knot range and was blowing out of the northeast. We didn’t have a dinghy with us, so if we caught a buoy on the lee side of the island we would have no way to make shore to pay for it. And the northeast wind was bearing down on the boat basin in a way that made me think that docking could be difficult and our night might be a little bumpy.

We pulled up the trusty iPad and did some quick navigation calculations. If the current in Colvos Passage wasn’t too strong, we could make Gig Harbor with at least 30 minutes of daylight to spare. And if we got lucky, we could stay for free at the public dock. So we pointed the nose down Colvos Passage and followed our jib to Gig Harbor.

I was just a little nervous about Gig Harbor. We have visited in the summer and found it to be quite crowded. It is possible to pull in there and have no room for anchoring and no room at the dock. But I had never been there on a Monday in the winter. Duh! There was only one other boat at the public dock. I walked the stern up to the dock like a pro and we tied off for the night. This would be our first night on the battery, and it seemed like a nice place to try it out. If the batteries go dead here, I can walk to a service station.

It is a rare event to be the only boat on the public dock in Gig Harbor. This would never happen in the summer.

I checked the charts that evening and calculated that we had traveled 55 nautical miles that day. We used to think that 20 miles was a long haul in the West Wight Potter. We almost tripled that distance today.

We have developed a tradition in our family. We like to end every sailing vacation by motoring head-on into a raging rain storm. Dee Ann goes below and starts cleaning while I take the helm like a true gentleman. But this time she started her cleaning routine a little sooner, before we reached Boston Harbor. "We have a bigger boat now. And it’s faster. I have to start earlier."

Budd Inlet satisfied our traditional need for a rain shower. I was relieved to see that the wind was not having much of an effect inside the breakwater at Swantown. We had tentatively reserved slip B-25, but this was our first approach from the water and we weren’t sure of the landmarks. Nancy told us to just put the boat in there and then come look her up. Lucky for us we made it in before the office closed. We hadn’t made plans for what to do if we didn’t have a gate key!

One more call to the kids and we had a ride home. We paid for the ride with a dinner on the boat.

Greg Horne and Custom Yacht Sales were absolutely fabulous to deal with during the entire process of buying the boat. I would absolutely use him again, if I wasn’t done buying sailboats. We didn’t pick a yacht broker because we like him. We picked a broker because he had the boat we wanted. We got real lucky and discovered that he not only had the inventory we wanted, he was a great guy to do business with. Greg was in a unique position with this sale because the brokerage owned the boat. So we weren’t just dealing with the brokers. We were dealing with the sellers.

I have equal high regard for Ken Rorison. He is a highly skilled yacht surveyor and the perfect person to have in your corner for a purchase such as this. Ken supervised the repairs and signed off on the glass work before the paint went on. Thanks to his insistence, I now have a hull that is in better-than-new condition.

By the way, the happiest day in a boater’s life is not the day he buys his new boat. It is the day he gets it home and ties that last cleat hitch on the home port dock.

Home!

Jim Laesen