Putting an offer on a boat sight unseen tomorrow

I have a minute so I thought I'd explain why we like this boat. And please tell me if you guys think otherwise.

We like the layout. We like the back deck, the molded stairs to the fly bridge and the pass through to the bow. I want something with twin small blocks but I don't know if the fuel savings between big blocks and small blocks will make that much of a difference (let me know if this isn't true). I'd rather focus on the condition of the boat over the size of the engines.

I will run this thing slow. Possible even shut an engine down for short, slow cruises? How do these boats handle on one engine?

We're planning on exploring different cities and marines. We also want to spend the night on the hook often. The generator and AC will need to be working well. Any idea how much fuel a genset burns while running AC?

Our 3 yr old will absolutely love the bunk bed. If/when we decide to make another little person, we'll figure something out.

My wife is more excited than I am. That's pretty cool. It doesn't mean that we are going to buy a junk boat. I'm here for information. I've already learned how valuable a survey is.

Steve91T said:

I have a minute so I thought I'd explain why we like this boat. And please tell me if you guys think otherwise. We have told you already

We like the layout. We like the back deck, the molded stairs to the fly bridge and the pass through to the bow. I want something with twin small blocks but I don't know if the fuel savings between big blocks and small blocks will make that much of a difference (let me know if this isn't true). I've owned both 350 and 454 CID, figure about 30% more fuel for the 454 plus it adds about 300 lbs per engine where you don't want it meaning the boat will have a tough time getting on plane I'd rather focus on the condition of the boat over the size of the engines.

I will run this thing slow. Possible even shut an engine down for short, slow cruises? How do these boats handle on one engine?

We're planning on exploring different cities and marines. We also want to spend the night on the hook often. The generator and AC will need to be working well. Do not run the gas genset while sleeping, Any idea how much fuel a genset burns while running AC? With those 454s, small in comparison

Our 3 yr old will absolutely love the bunk bed. If/when we decide to make another little person, we'll figure something out.

My wife is more excited than I am. That's pretty cool. It doesn't mean that we are going to buy a junk boat. I'm here for information. I've already learned how valuable a survey is.

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You may want to go back and read the prior comments. Have your wife read them too. She needs to know what you're trying to talk her into.

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I think that either you're certifiable or you are pulling our legs. A salvage company? Plus you get to pay the commission on top. Good deal.

Try and listen to the knowledge on this site or stop the nonsense.

"The broker sounds like an honest man". [emoji849]

If he was an honest broker he wouldn't be advising you to put in an offer sight unseen imo.

Good luck!

Not necessarily true- the offer/deposit takes the vessel of the market. Standard practice, and there is nothing unusual about it.

Easy guys. I'm here for advice and I am listening.

The boat has a clean title and has no damage history. This will also be verified and if it's not true, then we walk.

I am a little confused as to why so many of you are hung up on making an offer before seeing it. It's just an offer...nothing more. Am I missing something that could force me to purchase the boat? I will have all the contingencies that some of you mentioned. If it's not as pictured or described, or the survey reviels something that I don't like, then we walk.

I'm not trying to argue, just trying to understand.

Making an offer sight unseen, is a bad negotiating technique, it shows that you have the hook firmly set and that all the seller has to do is play you correctly to land a big one. A far better plan is to feign a slight interest, show up on short notice "since I just happened to be in town on other business", verbally critique the boat during the walk-through with the seller, then make a low-ball offer. At the very least, you will discover the actual selling price, not the posted list price. After that it's up to you: how bad do you want this particular copy of a common boat and how much will you pay?

Woodland Hills said:

Making an offer sight unseen, is a bad negotiating technique, it shows that you have the hook firmly set and that all the seller has to do is play you correctly to land a big one. A far better plan is to feign a slight interest, show up on short notice "since I just happened to be in town on other business", verbally critique the boat during the walk-through with the seller, then make a low-ball offer. At the very least, you will discover the actual selling price, not the posted list price. After that it's up to you: how bad do you want this particular copy of a common boat and how much will you pay?

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Cannot agree with you.

The bottom line is not "lowball"- a sale is made when both parties come to an agreement. As a seller, I would take offense to anyone that came onboard, made snide comments about the boat, then made an offer- that party would be invited to take a walk of a short pier...

As almost all marine purchase contracts skew in favor of the buyer with regards to the ability to rescind the offer to purchase, where is the downside?

I have sold boats to buyers SIGHT UNSEEN. When you make an offer it will be subject to a personal inspection, subject to survey, sea trial and mechanical inspection.
Do not plan a survey and hire surveyors until you have satisfied your personal inspection first. There is no need to spend money for surveyors until you see the condition of the boat for yourself.
However two things come to mind here. You say it is only 3.5 hours to the boat. I do not understand why you don't go to Myrtle Beach and look at a few different boats while you are there, plus this one. Find some other boats for sale in the same size and price range, the more boats you look at the easier it will be to say "this is the right one."
The other point is why is this boat listed with a company that specializes in salvage? Unlike CarFax I do not know of any place to check for damage history for boats that may be accurate. There are some services for that, but I question their accuracy. All of the disclaimers on the website are for boats that have had damage, but this boat has the same disclaimers. "REPORTED GOOD" doesn't sound encouraging.

Steve91T said:

I am a little confused as to why so many of you are hung up on making an offer before seeing it.

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For the exact same reason you wouldn't propose to a girl before going on a first date with her.

Come on dude, take a breather here. It's obvious you have boat fever. But take your time. Shop. Go see the boat then go see others and compare. Once you've seen half a dozen you might feel totally different about the boat you are so in love with today. Or it will confirm that you really like this layout and this type of boat. So at least when you do make an offer it's not going to be blindfolded like you are right now and it won't be like rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

Marinas and boat yards are filled with people who made impulsive decisions. Their boats are the ones that never get used.

Fotoman said:

For the exact same reason you wouldn't propose to a girl before going on a first date with her.

Come on dude, take a breather here. It's obvious you have boat fever. But take your time. Shop. Go see the boat then go see others and compare. Once you've seen half a dozen you might feel totally different about the boat you are so in love with today. Or it will confirm that you really like this layout and this type of boat. So at least when you do make an offer it's not going to be blindfolded like you are right now and it won't be like rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

Marinas and boat yards are filled with people who made impulsive decisions. Their boats are the ones that never get used.

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It's like 3 1/2 hours from Charlotte to Charleston. Take a long weekend. I'll bet the broker can show you as many boats as you want, especially when he sees your checkbook is ready to go. Pictures always make it look good. Kicking tires is half the fun.

Pau Hana said:

Cannot agree with you.

The bottom line is not "lowball"- a sale is made when both parties come to an agreement. As a seller, I would take offense to anyone that came onboard, made snide comments about the boat, then made an offer- that party would be invited to take a walk of a short pier...

As almost all marine purchase contracts skew in favor of the buyer with regards to the ability to rescind the offer to purchase, where is the downside?

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The seller is not a private owner who would need a different style of handling, but instead is a salvage company. They have zero emotional investment and thus no feelings to get hurt, it's all business to them and if the boat isn't sold its going to be stripped and cut up for the dump.

Anchoring, overnights, gas gensets and air conditioning... Buy about 6 CO alarms

Yeah, but don't wire those CO alarms into the ignition switch. Some knucklehead mechanic did that on the boat near our old marina where a couple died anchored out with their gas generator going.

There has got to be a bunch of diesel powered boats around that size out there. We owned a 32' carver with twin 454's gas and it was quite expensive. We also had intentions of the 7 or 8 knot cruise but always found our way up on plane at about 15 knots. Diesel is so much safer in my opinion too. On the lake is one thing but on the longer journeys of the icw, Bahamas's etc diesel(s) make more sense.

Steve91T said:

I will run this thing slow. Possible even shut an engine down for short, slow cruises? How do these boats handle on one engine?

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I'm not positive about this particular boat, but typically a boat like this will have fairly small rudders and won't handle all that great at low speeds. It will be even more sluggish to turn and/or hold a course on one engine.

Generator fuel burn will of course vary by load but I would say roughly 1/2GPH for a 5kw gas gen 50% loaded.

Ken

I will run this thing slow. Possible even shut an engine down for short, slow cruises? How do these boats handle on one engine?
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This goes for all boats. Do not just assume you can shut one engine down and run on the other. Yes, it can be done but some gearboxes do not take kindly to that at all - damage.
Some can be freewheeled, some for limited amounts of time at limited speeds and then the engine started and box exercised, some not at all needing the shaft secured from freewheeling at all. You need to KNOW which.

Usually twin engine boats have small rudders and the driving shaft is well offset meaning the drag and offset will tend to turn the boat one direction. That can cause handling problems. Maybe on this boat, maybe not but you need to know which.

I strongly agree with Yachtbrokerguy. Look at other boats. Take the weekend and go look at this one but others also.

I don't think any one here is trying to stomp on your dream/enthusiasm but many, too many, of us know of people who ignored all the advise and rued the day. Would prefer you not do that too.

Protect yourself especially if you do not have the skills to take on a big, darn big, project or the financial resources to kiss it off if the boat is wrong/bad.

Your choice of course. All we can do is suggest.

Pau Hana said:

Not necessarily true- the offer/deposit takes the vessel of the market. Standard practice, and there is nothing unusual about it.

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I agree. I negotiated a price with my last boat before I ever saw it. The offer was conditioned upon survey and sea trial of course.

If you find stuff that isn't as represented by the selling broker during the survey and sea trial then your offer becomes the starting place for further negotiation.

I want to clear some things up. There are a lot of assumptions going on in this thread.

The company selling this boat does mostly deal with salvages and insurance work. But they also sell "normal boats". This is one of those normal boats. I believe it was a "friend of a friend" type thing. I don't know, really don't care.

They do not own this boat. They are advertising and showing the boat for the owner who doesn't live near the boat. It will not be sold for scrap. I am not paying commission, the seller is.

If there is damage or something major that I don't see, the survey and mechanical inspection will hopefully expose those issues.

My wife and I are into this together. We are both equally excited. I am not dragging her into anything and she's not dragging me into anything.

Let's please keep this this thread full of facts and information that will possibly help someone else who might be in the same situation as I am.

Moving forward...

I have looked and do not believe diesel is sold on Lake Norman. I also twin diesels in this size and my price range are hard to find. I'm sure they are out there, but we haven't found many on the interwebs.

I do wish this thing had small blocks in it. But I don't think it's going to make such a huge deference to walk away from the boat. I've done some math and I figure that the most of the time on our lake, we will burn about $20 of fuel for an outing. Not much different than what our 20' bow rider burns. Even if we went all the way up to the northern part of the lake, the round trip will be about $75. On the coast, a trip from Florida to the Bahamas will be about $120 each way. I would absolutely love twin diesels for the fuel savings but like I said, not only are we not seeing many for sale, diesel isn't available on our lake.

About shutting down an engine. Very good point and something I didn't think about. I guess it's the same reason you don't tow a rwd car without removing the driveshaft.

Our plan is to keep the boat where it's at and commute back and forth for small trips up and down the ICW. We are so excited about the thought of that experience. We are thinking about having another kid. Now is the time to travel, once she starts feeling like a whale, we'll ship it back to our lake and enjoy the boat here until the bun in the oven is old enough to travel again.

We've looked at so many boats online. This boat meets our requirements and has the most of our "what we wants" and the least of our "what we don't likes".

We are currently in negotiations. We shot them a low ball offer and we are waiting to hear back. We will have in writing that this offer is contingent upon our visual inspection and the river test. If that goes well, we will offer a survey. If all of the above go well, we'll have a deal. If not, we go home without loosing any money. (Possible the survey cost of it gets to that).

My wife and I spent a lot of time taking about the concerns that some of you brought to our attention. We used that information to make an educated decision. We wanted to put an offer in to take the boat off the market until we can see it next weekend. With said contingencies, we don't see any risk.

Anyway, I hope this clears up some concerns. Again I really do appreciate everyone's input. It truely has helped us.

I'll keep you guys posted. Now I'm going to start reading about the rules of boating on the ICW. If anyone can point me in the right direction, it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

I have made offers on unseen boats in the past. Turned out ok. I made the offer contingent on inspection, sea trial and survey. Then we renegotiated based on the outcome of the survey. One thing I do not do is run the boat down to the owner. They probably are quite proud of the boat and don't need to be offended. I base my negotiation on my problems, this is all I can afford, etc , not this boat isn't worth more. I find that this helps take some of the emotion out of the bargaining. If this is the boat you really like and it passes survey, sea trial and your personal inspection, then go for it. Fuel cost isn't the main factor in buying a boat. You will cruise as much as you can afford or just hang out on the boat when you run out of money for fuel.

Comodave said:

I have made offers on unseen boats in the past. Turned out ok. I made the offer contingent on inspection, sea trial and survey. Then we renegotiated based on the outcome of the survey. One thing I do not do is run the boat down to the owner. They probably are quite proud of the boat and don't need to be offended. I base my negotiation on my problems, this is all I can afford, etc , not this boat isn't worth more. I find that this helps take some of the emotion out of the bargaining. If this is the boat you really like and it passes survey, sea trial and your personal inspection, then go for it. Fuel cost isn't the main factor in buying a boat. You will cruise as much as you can afford or just hang out on the boat when you run out of money for fuel.

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That's great to hear. Thank you.

Steve91T said:

Speaking to the broker, who I believe to be a honest man,

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Wifey B: So have thousands of others who have been misled by dishonest brokers.

BandB said:

Wifey B: So have thousands of others who have been misled by dishonest brokers.

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I feel I'm a pretty good judge of character. I'll know the second I step foot in that boat if I was right or wrong.

Steve91T said:

I feel I'm a pretty good judge of character. I'll know the second I step foot in that boat if I was right or wrong.

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Wifey B: Famous last words. Not when you're blinded and you're so blinded by your enthusiasm for this boat and the concept of hauling it back and forth. You should drive down there tomorrow. I'll tell you, hubby was looking at the ad and even to me that might be the squirrelliest boat ad I've ever seen. Really all the "reported" and even the way the price thing is written and the disclaimers.

Look, I hope you go to it and it is great, but I don't feel like right now you would know. That's why the surveyor is key, but if you're sold on it, will you listen to him? Or will you excuse things away? That's the fear.

Oh, and no, you won't know anything the second you step on it except whether they cleaned it up well or not. Sorry, just my warning.

We made an offer on Hobo with out seeing her. The sale was continent on a satisfactory survey and sea trial. At the time we were in Seattle and Hobo was in AK. We did the offer remotely with a deposit held by a marine title company. We arranged for the survey and sea trial and flew to AK 2 weeks later for those. As a result of the survey, the seller reduced the selling price by 10K. All moneys went through the title company and they did the final distribution of the monies. The seller had a loan.


We could have backed out if we didn't like the survey or the sea trial. All we would have been out is our time, the cost of travel and the cost associated with the survey. Real easy and we got the boat we wanted.

Steve91T

Your last post makes some sense.

The group is not out to berate you or cause you grief. We are hear to help and a lot of the folks here have bought numerous boats, and I'm sure ones without surveys. You've seem to change your tone a bit from your first post, making the purchase subject to an inspection and survey. And that's probably the safest way to buy a boat.

Question that might make the folks here give you better advice. What is your boating experience, both operating and boats you've owned?

There's nothing wrong with a sight unseen offer, but there's a time a place. In your situation, it makes sense because of the distance. Folks do that a lot, and often hire someone to look at the boat first, which is not hard to do. Also, there's nothing wrong with BUYING a boat (or other toy) sight unseen, but one needs to have reasonably reliable information as to the condition and what he's buying. And when you're buying a boat unseen, you need to be intimately familiar with THAT boat, not just a guess.

Just reading the ad, it sounds like a very motivated seller, with skinny descriptions of things, no model numbers, no description of the electronics, etc., etc. It reads like a high maintenance boat, but that's gut feeling. However, if the bulk of the appliances, electronics haven't been replaced, it will be high maintenance. As for the operation of the boat, the pair of 454s will burn gas. For your $20 of gas for a cruise, that might get you 30 to 45 minutes.

To me it would be an ideal boat to hang on at the dock, or run out to a nearby favorite anchorage that's close and hang out there, or perhaps watch a sunset from. It's not an ideal cruiser for trips of much distance, the gas will eat your lunch. BUT, it's cheap. And because it's cheap, you'll have some negatives.

I agree with Wifey BandB, your will NOT know if its the right boat by stepping on it... you will know after a good inspection and perhaps survey. Buying a boat is not like falling in love with a woman (but probably just as bad). You may not know if it's the right boat for several months after buying it.

I've bought two boats unseen. Both, however, were new-builds. Wasn't disappointed.

Certified sales are GREAT marketers. They get above top dollar for project,salvage and other unwanted boats. Costs associated with bringing some of their boats up to an acceptable, seaworthy level are way more than what you would think. Tread carefully before moving on this boat.

Sailor of Fortune said:

Certified sales are GREAT marketers. They get above top dollar for project,salvage and other unwanted boats. Costs associated with bringing some of their boats up to an acceptable, seaworthy level are way more than what you would think. Tread carefully before moving on this boat.

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You have clearly not read anything I've said. This is not a salvage boat.

Steve91T said:

You have clearly not read anything I've said. This is not a salvage boat.

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How do you know that?