Judy and Matt At Sea: A few details on buying a boat like Monkey Business

November 3, 2010: Aboard Monkey Business, Stuart, FL. Beautiful morning and it is beginning to cool off a bit. Very warm since we arrived and, of course, a record hot Fall in Florida. Seems like we have been enduring never-ending heat since May! Supposed to be down to the 60's here later this week and we will enjoy that very much.

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At the risk of boring some of you, I thought I would write about the process of buying a large boat and include some details about checking out the vessel, which may be of interest. After the acceptance of our offer to purchase the boat, we engaged a marine surveyor to check out what we were buying. Similar to a prepurchase inspection on an airplane. Malcolm was an interesting fellow who immigrated from Scotland about 30 years ago, became a yacht captain and later a surveyor. He has about 5 people working for him and does about 300 surveys a year. Considerable business in that it takes an entire day to complete the survey and that is if the weather cooperates. Malcolm spends about 3 hours checking all of the systems, such as air conditioning units, generators, lighting, water maker, oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer, refrigerators, ice makers, etc. The boat is then started and taken to a haul out facility to be removed from the water. At the haul out, Malcolm checks the running gear, props, shafts, bottom condition, stabilizers, sea water intakes, etc. Then back in the water for a sea trial. He runs the boat at various RPMs to record fuel burn, speed, handling, etc. He runs all the systems and electronics to see if all is well. Monkey Business only had a few issues, such as the water maker, bridge stereo, high water alarm and other smaller items.

Next we had the Caterpillar people come in to check out the two 700 hp C12 engines. We were asking for an extension of the 5 years warranty, which was expiring, for 3 more years. Part of our offer to the seller was an extension of 2 years, which he agreed to, but we added a third year at our cost. The CAT people do a full service, oil and filter change, etc. and then do a sea trial to check the speeds, RPM, etc. under full power and various other power settings. The engines are required to reach at least 2300 RPM to qualify for the warranty extension. This is to ensure that we were running the proper propellers and drive gear, otherwise it puts strain on the engines. Monkey Business would only do 2291 on one engine, 2278 on the other. Failed the CAT test. This was a condition of acceptance, so the owner had to remedy this to get the required warranty extension. The engines were working fine, but possibly the running gear, props and shafts, were dragging the speed down. The owner had put a coating on the running gear to inhibit marine growth, which was noticed on the haul out, but it had a rough finish, which is not normal. Malcolm, CAT and our broker, Paul Flannery, suggested we try removing the coating to see if the RPM would come up. The owner paid a diver, who spent 4 hours under the boat, to remove the coating. The coating is not really necessary, if you have the bottom cleaned by a diver once in awhile. Result was 2320/2325 RPM on the next run.

The owner fixed all we requested of him to fix and we closed on the boat. Sorry for all the detail, but some of you technical types out there might find this interesting.

We won't be leaving Stuart until the end of the year, so we will not have travel stories for the blog. We will update you as we go along.

More to come......