Buying and Selling our Boat

A bullet point account of how we set about swapping Gianti for something a little larger to take us on the next phase of Our Big Boaty Adventure:

• Find a boat. Preferably one that’s afloat or can float.
• Make sure your chosen boat is for sale. If not, convince the current owners that it no longer meets their requirements and that they should sell to you.
• Accept that you may not have sufficient finance to buy chosen boat, then ignore this fact.
• Make a plan to sell your current boat, but just before you advertise, chat with your friends, then be amazed when the tell you they’d like to buy it!
• Inform the owners of your chosen boat that you’ve got buyers and ignore the fact that things have gone disconcertingly quiet of late.
• Amble on, dismissive of any idea that the boat purchase may not come to fruition.
• Meanwhile, chat to more friends and let them tell you all about their friend’s boat that’s for sale while stating “not that we want to influence any decision, but it might be worth a look!”
• Check out the other boat online and totally confuse yourself about whether it’s a worthy option.
• Convince your friends that they should spend 6 hours of their lives examining the alternative boat (under the guise of boat perving) on your behalf and then send you a comprehensive e-mail explaining the pro’s, con’s and suitability.
• Convince the Broker to give you a live 1.5-hour video tour.
• Don’t waste any time sleeping, but instead use this time to scrutinise every pro/con in an endless decision loop.
• After weeks of sleep deprivation, make the decision to buy the boat.
• Question your decision many, many, many times, but only during night hours.
• Accept your fate and inform the owners of the first boat that you’re pulling out. Be re-assured when they breath a huge sigh of relief and tell you that they’d decided not to sell anyway. Rejoice at this outcome!
• Make an offer on the new (old) boat, negotiate and agree a price.
• Realise what you’ve done then go back to the endless night time pro/con decision loop.
• Congratulations, you now own a 36-year-old boat that you’ve never set foot on, that’s roughly 850 miles away and that you’re unlikely to see before the middle of the year.
• Sit back and revel in the fact that you’ve made absolutely the right decision. Hopefully!

NB: We’re really chuffed and excited with our new boat and can’t wait to step aboard and get stuck in, but in the meantime we’re still aboard Gianti and trying to get her ready to sail back to the UK and hand her over to her new owners. Oh, the new (old) boat’s a 46’ Amel Maramu.

Now time for the fun bit … A new name that we both agree on!!!