Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a boat. So with that in mind, Skip and I planned out our road (and sea) trip to Long Island. We chose Long Island because there were about five to ten boats of the specific make and model we were targeting for sale at various boatyards and dealerships there. Also, Skip summered on Shelter Island, NY and knew the area well.
After looking at the first couple of boats, Skip suggested we come up with a back-of-the napkin scoring sheet. We graded each boat based on overall condition, hours on the engines, and an assortment of other factors. For example, one category was radar. Skip could tell within seconds how much value an open array radar system added compared to a closed array. He turned one unit on that happened to be a closed array and said “that’s not working right, it’s off balance, it will need to be fixed,” and made note of it on our scoring sheet. At the end of the day, we had about six boats scored and had an idea of what our final price would be for each.
We made an offer on our favorite one. There was some back and forth and a final price was accepted. But the deal was contingent on the boat passing a marine survey.
That’s a good thing, because it failed.
