We Bought a Boat!!

The week before we arrived in Florida we contacted a few brokers to set up viewings. One of our favourite boats we had seen online was near Miami, a 1984 Brewer 12.8 (42ft), and so we set up our first viewing for the following day after our arrival. The day before we flew the price was reduced from $80,000 to $50,000, making the boat even more enticing, but also making us question what could be the reason for this. After arriving in Miami, and picking up the van, we headed up towards Riviera Beach Marina to view the boat the following day.

We loved the boat! She was beautiful, but in need of some serious cosmetic love. It had systems upon systems that all worked but were pretty dated, and she was full of all the tools, spares, fishing gear, dive equipment etc. you could need, with pretty much every cupboard full to the brim!

The boat had been on the market for around 6 months and with the marina costing $2,000 a month, so the owner was really keen to get her sold. Whilst viewing the boat the broker let us know an offer had been made, but was much lower than the owner wanted to accept. They were intending to counter offer the following day, so any decision we made had a time limit!

The following morning we had a call with the Owner, based in Hong Kong. He told us all about her history and his time spent aboard, plus all the work he had done to the boat. His final voyage was from Hong Kong to Florida, to return the boat home to where she was built. This was how she ended up for sale in Riviera Beach.

That afternoon, after much deliberation and pro/cons lists, we decided to put in an offer…And to our surprise, it was accepted! We had a few drinks to celebrate...

We then had to organise a survey of the boat and waited two weeks for the owner to fly over from Hong Kong to join us.

The Survey went really well. A small patch of osmosis was found on the hull, but the surveyor assured us it was nothing major (also expected with the age of the boat) and something we could fix ourselves in the future. There was a few other issues to get sorted. Otherwise all was pretty much good considering the age of the boat, everything works for now but is old and will eventually need replacing. Final comments of the surveyor was that he was pleasantly surprised by the condition! So basically, nothing major came up that would stop us buying the boat.

Also, a spotted eagle ray jumped out of the water behind the boat whilst she was hauled out. Pretty sure that was a good omen.

Rex, the previous owner, spent a few weeks with us teaching us everything we needed to know about the boat whilst we waited for the sale to be finalised. Then we moved aboard!

Huge thank you to Rex for sharing all his knowledge with us!

In the next post we will give you a little tour of the boat 😊