With the vision in our veins of living a life filled with simplicity, independence, freedom, mobility and appreciation we set off last July in our search for the perfect liveaboard sailboat. Filled with excitement we researched and visited different marinas, saddened to find out that the west coast is not as cruiser friendly as the east coast. In their quest to achieve intense exclusivity one marina after the next informed us of their “waiting lists”. What came first the egg or the chicken, well, when it comes to boats in California, you must first have a boat before the marina will review your application to then place you on their “waiting list”, even if you don’t have were to put it (sometimes for over a year according to some friends’ personal experiences.) “This couldn’t be possible!!!” we were perplexed, how could anyone buy a boat without a slip to put it in? The answer: bureucracy, money, brokers, deals, lies, and a distorted sense of what enjoying the cruising life should be like. Could it be the frigid water one sails in on the west coast or is there a much deeper, dark, secret behind it all. After many trips to different marinas some light began to surface. A “waiting list” could be avoided if you purchase a boat through a broker in the area where you plan to dock. They will then secure you a slip for the boat your purchase from them as the marinas have some slips “reserved” for them. The slips are not transferable most of the time and living aboard is a four letter word. The mountains of obstacles seem to escalate with every move we take.
Hiring a broker to buy a boat… a necessary evil seems like… How could you get a boat slip without one? The answer is not clear yet, but our experiences with a broker for the past year taught us many valuable lessons – never, never, never, never – I repeat – never trust a broker! The story begins with the first boat we asked to see. “Well, let me show you some other boats that will be perfect for you so you can compare” (all more expensive than the one we inquire about of course…) The broker seemed to think he was done showing us the boats when we brought to his attention that we had not seen the boat we were originally interested in…. Off we go to see the boat, a roomy 43 footer that seemed perfect for our needs and in great condition. “This is not the boat for you, you don’t want to buy this boat.” he said, “no room for a generator or storage, but let me show you the right boat for you.” (a 46 footer). We should have known better to drop him right then and there, but coming from the east coast, our trusting nature got the best of us and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. The 46′ was more than we wanted to spend and he notified us that the owner would not accept an offer for less. (Aren’t brokers on the west coast suppose to present any offers to the sellers and let them make the decision?) The boat was too big for us anyway, so on we went on our boat search.
Kilometric footage of videos, photographs, print outs and phone calls and a year later on June of 2009 we were right back were we started. We now knew all the ins and out of each model, what we needed, what to look for , etc., etc., etc. and armed with all the information and “money in our pockets” we set off to look at boats of that model/make. Lord and behold, the twists and turns of life took us back to that first boat we liked, the 43 footer was still on the market and our broker now told us that this was the “perfect” boat for us. “But, you showed us this exact boat last year and said it was all wrong for our needs!” “You must be mistaken” he said. “I never showed you this boat.”. (Our paperwork trail shows otherwise, so his intentions were very transparent now…)
The owner was on the boat! How lucky for us – someone that can answer all our questions. “I will be leaving to Mexico tomorrow” he informed us. “I am fed up with brokers here and will be selling the boat in Mexico.” After a lengthy visit we knew the boat was right for us, our first instinct was actually right a year ago. We placed an offer 1/2 hour later and told our broker to not hold up the owner, our offer was the best, only and final offer he will see so he could determine if he could do it right away and if not then he could depart as planned; but brokers, well – brokers have their own agenda, greed somehow gets the best of them. “Your offer is too low, he will never accept it.” he said. “We will then call his broker directly to present the offer if you don’t want to do it.” Of course he did it! He was only going to go so far – or so we thought… Long story short, the broker held up the owner for 2 days while figuring out how to get more money from us.
At last, good news = the owner accepted your offer! The bad news = “He wants to keep the EPIRB and the SSB so he can sell them to make a little money for having accepted such a low offer.” We couldn’t believe that someone would jeopardize the sell of their boat for no more than $1500 worth of old, used equipment and decided that something didn’t seem right and declined the offer. (By now our broker was he hawing about being able to secure a liveaboard slip as well even though he had assured us that if we bought a boat from him, he could secure one…)
The owner and his broker called us directly: “We never asked for the equipment, I don’t have time to take it out of the boat and don’t want to deal with selling it, plus I don’t need it. It was your broker who suggested we keep it and that he knows someone that is interested in buying it.” It just got worst by the minute, it was obvious that our broker’s greed had no end, could it have been HIM who wanted to buy the equipment? We were Libid! – yes, with capital letter! Outraged, we were not about to put one single penny on our broker’s pocket, so we decided to wait for another boat and parted ways, hopefully to not ever see that broker again.
And with that, our search continues…
etc. Let us know if you are interested in any of it.
