Boat Closing - We Own a Boat!

This all started because it was supposed to rain in Keyport...

During our closing, I was talking to Brian (our dealer at G. Winter's Sailing Center).  For those of you who have never been through one, a boat closing is a lot like a house closing, but much more relaxed (you're getting a boat, after all).  There's lots of signing paperwork, but also lots of chatting as things get notarized, secretaries double check paperwork, and the like.  So after dialing Vicky in via WeChat for any final questions, we had time to talk.

I'm pretty sure this all happened because it was supposed to rain.

Our original plans for the weekend was to sail with my cousin's family to NYC and then sail back with my colleague who was visiting from Germany.  We had previously backed out on my cousin due to the extreme heat, and so remembering Captain Andy's Sailing Shardana charter service, we went where there wasn't supposed to be rain.

That's where Vicky fell in love with the 425, and that's where I fell in love with my beloved's ability to quickly know what she wants and how to get it.

So we closed on the boat today... Vicky did her part in China and the magic of FedEx got the documents to me 30 hours later.

I did have time to check her out.  She is part way through the commissioning process which will take a couple more weeks.  Then we have a day of orientation, a delivery trip to Rock Hall, MD and a small celebration once Vicky returns to the US in early October.

Here are the photos... I was told I focused too much on engines and generators and the like last time, so these will show the wonderful spaces on the Catalina 425.  You'll notice that the 425 has an incredible amount of light that floods all the cabins.

Starboard Side

Port side

View from the bow... Vicky's lounge cushion will sit here

View of the cockpit from the companionway

The galley

The main salon (table retracted) port side

Main salon starboard side

Aft head

All the control lockers

Owner's cabin

Makeup table in owner's cabin

Forward (owner's) head

Main guest cabin (starboard, aft)

Combination port guest cabin/storage area

(This space will be mostly configured for storage and opens to the cockpit)

Cockpit looking forward from the stern

That's pretty much it... there's a custom Bimini being manufactured for us.  It will be grey like the other canvas (hopefully the birds in Rock Hall don't like grey... they don't seem to in Keyport).

Keyport or Rock Hall?

I thought I had more time to decide on this...

(Photo Credit:  Marinas.com)

When we purchased Seas The Day (315), we lived in Keyport and had just joined the Keyport Yacht Club.  It was a really cost effective place to keep a boat and still has many positives (along with a few negatives).  Besides, we lived right in view of their mooring field and could keep an eye on Seas The Day.

The other day, as part of the paperwork getting ready to close, I had to choose the name and hailing port for the USCG documentation.  I thought I had a week or so (until I had to choose the lettering), but they need it now.

A few years ago I switched jobs and moved to Newark, DE.  That puts me mid-way between two great sailing locations -  the Raritan Bay and the Chesapeake Bay.  While my son continued to live in Keyport, it was a no brainer to keep Seas The Day up there.

But then we visited the charming town of Rock Hall, MD a couple of years ago and again recently during our sailing excursion that lead to all of this.  Captain Andy (who taught us ASA 103 and 105) really loved Osprey Point Marina in Rock Hall, and keeps his charter boat there.  It also turns out our delivery captain, Captain Gary, also used this marina.

Still it was a hard decision.

On one hand, we love Keyport.  It's a very "un yacht clubish" yacht club... full of great down-to-earth people.  But then Rock Hall had it's draw, too...


Time for some pluses and minuses...

For Keyport...

+ Great people and some good friends.
+ The bar with the best sunset view!
+ By far the cheapest place to keep a boat in our region
+ Uses moorings which I perceive to be more secure than docks
     (if someone is going to mess with your boat, they have to get to it)
+ A Launch system that is incredibly professional, clean and prompt with extended hours.
+ Lets me practice my photography hobby through races, mother's day portraits and Santa!
+ Has Pedersens right nearby (they always have taken good care of Seas The Day)
+ Drews Bayshore Bistro and Neil Michael's Steakhouse!

- It requires a trip up the NJ Turnpike and then down the Garden State Parkway
     (Traffic - or at least my tolerance of it - seems to be getting worse each year)
- Access to fuel and water is less convenient (you have to worry about tides)
- It has a parking problem.  (Due to an issue with a neighbor we lost a lot of spaces.)
- Birds are horrible there (which really makes the access to water essential)


For Rock Hall and Osprey Point...

+ We already know two boats there
+ It's like a resort... pool... bar... fine restaurant & hotel on site... available bikes
+ Beautiful grounds
+ Plenty of parking
+ It has a dock with water & electric
     (Vicky can clean her boat as much as she wants!)
+ Beautiful drive on two lane roads (half-hour closer too)
+ Waterman's Crab House! (I'm sure there are others)

- It uses docks... I hate those things.  (But Vicky wants to clean her boat!)

(I expect that more negatives may arise.)

But for now, we will have it documented as "Seas The Day" hailing from "Rock Hall, MD".  Everything has been approved.  Vicky signed the closing docs in China last night and they are getting FedExed here as I write this.  I expect to close the deal tomorrow.

We will sadly be leaving KYC sometime in the fall after Seas The Day (315) is picked up by the dealer.

A beautiful Day Singlehanding

Saturday was a beautiful day, so I fought the traffic up the Turnpike and Parkway to Keyport, boarded the launch and went out for a single-handed day on Seas The Day.  The sky was a gorgeous blue, the water ranged from deep blue to inky black (in the shadow of the clouds), and there were a lot of boats out for the day.  A great steak dinner with John finished it up.

Wait What??? You're Getting Another Boat?

(Note:  The three photos above are CAD drawings from the Catalina website)

Both of my readers by now have guessed that we were really impressed with Shardana, the Catalina 425 that we sailed on during our recent charter out of the Chesapeake Bay.  They have also realized that our subsequent boat shopping, then me spending the weekend cleaning out Seas The Day were foreboding a bigger announcement which we can now make.

Seas The Day is growing up.

She will morph from a Catalina 315 to a Catalina 425.  We'll keep the name, but change boats.

It looks like the offer was accepted, a down payment offered, a mortgage applied for, more down payment requested (I screwed up paying some of Vicky's CC bills a while back), more down payment found and provided and we now expect that if...

if...

if paperwork can get emailed to China, signed and FedEx'd back in time, etc.

and if all else goes well,

then the boat will be ours towards the end of next week.

But that only means the dealer's yard can start putting her together.  The 425 is much farther along than Seas The Day was when we first saw her - it's already in the water and parts of the mast were in place when we went boat shopping the other weekend.

With luck, it will quickly get assembled, I'll get oriented to her, we'll do a day or two of sailing out of the Delaware, punch out items will get completed, and it will get moved to Rock Hall, MD (to allow us a couple of months of use before the end of the season) before Vicky returns around the end of September.

It's going to be a wild few weeks.

That leaves the question... why?

Obviously, that's a bit complicated.  Vicky usually shops a lot for a purchase.  I ALWAYS research a purchase like this extensively.  Yet here we are a few weeks after first seeing a 425, purchasing one.

Allow me to explain.

First, It's a Catalina.  I'm not a sailor... never grew up near the water... basically decided to start sailing because of the condo we had at the time.  But we looked at a wide range of boats and settled on the Catalina 315 five years ago.  Sailing Andy's 425 felt like a simple iteration (much larger) that didn't require a lot of relearning boat systems.  Even during the boat buying tour inside, I could predict where things were and what they did.  It's enough of a bump to remove some of the very few limitations we felt with Seas The Day, yet seemed like it could be a nice boat for a couple for quite some time.  We know a few couples who have 50-footers, but they seem like way too much boat for our foreseeable needs.

Second... It's a Catalina.  For that I have to explain about "Jerry".  I encountered Jerry when our fuel tank leaked as we were getting Seas The Day ready for this year.  I called Catalina to try and figure out what to do and ended up talking to this guy named Jerry who I had never heard of.  But it turned out he said he designed the 315... seemed to be relatively high on the totem pole there... knew a lot about her and seemed genuinely worried that the tank failed so early (yet clearly years beyond the warranty).  Here's what impressed me -- Jerry immediately offered to send me a new tank at cost (and did so in a way that got us up and running quickly).  That willingness to stand behind a product seems rare today (I know the effort it takes) and it made a great impression on me.

It turns out that Jerry seems to have also designed the 425.  Evidently, he's also a VP there and their lead designer.  Here he is introducing the 425 design a few years ago.

Third is our Catalina dealer -  G. Winter's Sailing Center... working with Brian was great (we enjoyed the buying process last time), also anticipating another delivery trip with Capt. Gary and everything that goes along with that experience.

Finally... our two "sailing axioms" and the reason in this so far already...

1.  We have both been incredibly blessed.

(especially in our careers)

and

2.  Heartbeats are our most limited resource.

(We're not getting any younger)

Yes, we could have spent months researching and evaluating.  We would have lost a lot of time in boat visits, we'd be 6 months older, we might have decided on a different boat, but I doublt we'd end up with a better one.

We know the brand... we like the boat...

So "Seas The Day"!

Cleaning Out Seas The Day

We tried doing this last weekend, but it was so choppy in Keyport Harbor that it was impossible.  We realized that we keep WAY TOO MUCH stuff aboard Seas The Day.  During our day of sailing on Shardana, Vicky liked how neat Capt. Andy kept his boat and we decided it was time to clean our's out.

Unfortunately, between last weekend when it was too choppy, and this weekend when the bay was calm, Vicky went back to China.  So I was given marching orders had the pleasure of cleaning her out myself.  We approached her from the launch, but the launch captain was busy talking to another member and I ended up taking a brief tour of the mooring field.

Once aboard, the first task was to empty all lockers and drawers and cabins... all the contents had to go into the salon and get roughly sorted into a wide variety of tote bags and garbage bags for the larger items.

Doing the rest of the boat was a breeze... tackling the chart table was a nightmare.  Everyone knows that I keep a messy desk, and Seas The Day is no exception.

Once everything was sorted, I went to the dock so I could off-load the 30 or so bags of crap boat items.

It was exhausting work and I never want a job as a longshoreman.

While photographing, I realized that we only have 230 hours on the diesel...

So she's all cleaned out and looks great inside (outside too).

Somehow, I was able to fit everything in the car and immediately started the drive south.  I'll sort through everything at home and decide what to return with.

The house is now filled with piles... piles of bedding to get washed...

Piles of misc. boat items to get sorted through...

Piles of galley items to get washed and repacked...

And a small pile of key items if I want to go sailing while I'm sorting the mess.  I have a few weeks until Vicky returns to get it all sorted out.