Lamb’s Yacht Center
“You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go and see what happens.” ―Mandy Hale
Happy 60th birthday babe! A man can never have too many tools, guitars or boats. Stan’s answer to how many he needs is always…”Just One More”!
Last fall we fell in love with the idea of having another boat. One we would leave in Texas to use as a vacation home. A place for family to gather, take short cruises and hang out. We’ve been talking about and looking at boats online and in person for almost a year. We came close to buying a 53′ Hatteras last December, but the timing wasn’t right and it just didn’t happen. This spring we looked at several other boats a 50′ Maine Trader, a Sea Master 48 and the 48′ Hatteras. Stan studied and searched the Internet daily for the right boat. Last spring after we finished our trip up the St. John’s River Stan looked at a 48′ Hatteras docked at the end of our pier. We didn’t think much about it until we got home this summer. The more we thought about it the more we realized it was the boat we were looking for…three staterooms, plenty of living space and a large aft deck for entertaining family and friends.
Buying a large old used boat can be somewhat of a roller coaster ride. Definitely not like buying a car…it’s more like buying a house. Finding just the right boat can take awhile, but that’s only the beginning. Once you find that perfect boat…you start getting excited, but there are still so many things that have to fall into place before it can be yours. One day everything seems perfect and the next day something unexpected comes up. Engines have to be checked out, electrical systems and plumbing have to be looked at, not to mention the condition of the hull, the paint, the windows, the electronics and a zillion other things that could make the boat a bad choice. We spent two days poking around the boat checking everything out, and then debating if we really wanted or needed the extra responsibility of owning another boat. The answer was YES, so we made an offer on the boat and our roller coaster ride of emotions began. Waiting to hear if the offer was accepted was a little hard…especially since we really wanted the boat. Once the offer was accepted we began lining up experts to do a full survey of the boat. One surveyor that would concentrate on the Detroit engines and another would check everything else. We could tell the boat looked great, but it is 33 years old. Our biggest concern were the engines and how much work they might need. The first checks on them showed there might be an issue…so then we had to rethink our offer. We even gave some thought to passing on the boat all together. In the end we adjusted our offer and had the survey and sea trail yesterday.
The sea trail is my favorite part of the process…that’s when you take the boat out on the water and see how everything works while underway. The survey, haul out and sea trail didn’t show anything new or alarming, in fact it showed that the engines seem fine for now, although they may need to be over hauled in the future. So…today we are waiting on the written report and the oil samples to be returned and hopefully by Wednesday we can start the process of signing all the papers and making her ours…I guess we need to come up with a name pretty soon!
A look at the bottom of the Hatteras
A beautiful day for a sea trail
A little video of the haul out
