Diesel Duck
Senior Member
WARNING! This is a lengthy post. I recommend you have a hot cup of coffee or a cold beverage in hand before reading...
After more than ten years of dreaming I have finally purchased a Seahorse Marine built Diesel Duck.
Back story... My "dream" actually began a lot more than ten years ago while I was in Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico where I have (had) a second home. I was at the local marina where I saw a salty looking trawler that really caught my eye. It was a Nordhavn 62 named Tesla. I was fortunate enough to find the owners on board and they invited me in for a tour. WOW! I was smitten. Then reality kicked in knowing there was no way I could afford a million dollar plus trawler like this N62. I needed to sell my villa there in Huatulco before I could take the leap. Shortly thereafter I put my villa up for sale and while trying to sell it I went deep down the Nordhavn rabbit hole and became a "Nordhavn Dreamer" but, then while at a Trawlerfest in Anacortes, WA, I came across a Diesel Duck 462 on exhibition. During that Trawlerfest I spent hours each day on that DD and was able to meet the designer of the DD series of boats, the late George Buehler, along with the founder of Seahorse Marine, the late Mr. Bill Kimley. As anyone who had the pleasure of meeting Bill, you will agree his in depth knowledge of trawlers, along with his easy going and jovial demeanor made it easy for me to switch camps and abandon the Nordhavn boats and become a Diesel Duck dreamer.
At that Trawlerfest, or possibly one sometime after, I met another DD enthusiast and we became friends from a distance. At some point he invited me to accompany him on a trip to the Seahorse Marine shipyard located in Zhuhai, China where he was scheduled to take delivery of his DD 462. I jumped on the chance and went to the Seahorse Marine shipyard with him. We spent 3 weeks there where, again, I had the pleasure to spend a lot of time with Bill Kimley. That was back in October of 2014…
Prior to selling my Mexican villa (2 years) I happened to find a DD for sale in Australia that checked all my boxes… I began a dialog with the Broker with what was to become a full 2 years of back and forth communications. Good news, sort of… I finally sold the villa (so I thought) and began more serious negotiations with the Broker only to be shocked by the Buyer of my villa pulling out of the deal at the last moment. The only positive thing for me at that time was the Buyer forfeited his 10% deposit.
Fast forward another year, the same Buyer resurfaced and resubmitted an offer to buy my villa. This time the deal went through without any hiccups.
Now for the really good news…. I would like to announce that I am the proud new owner of a DD 462+ formerly known as Elena M (note: the DD 462+ is actually the newest iteration of the venerable 462 series and is 18 inches longer than all previous DD 462’s). Note: They added the 18 inches in the galley/engine room area along with adding a few inches in the salon.
The purchase story… I flew to Australia the first part of October 2024 and stayed there for 28 days to get the deal, along with the purchase process, completed. Yes, I flew all the way from where I live in South America to Australia without a purchase contract in place but I was very confident, after two years of communicating with the Broker, that once I was there the deal would come together. It was a bit of a risky gamble, especially knowing that I was dealing with a very stubborn Seller who, for the longest time (over 4 years), refused to move off his asking price. In the end, his Broker finally talked some sense into him and convinced him to lower his price to a sensible amount.
Boat history: DD 462-15 is basically a new boat. Explanation… The Seller took delivery in May of 2017 and hired a delivery crew to bring the boat from Hong Kong back to his home port in Queensland, Australia. Without going into too much personal detail about the Seller, as I understand it, he got off the boat when it reached the Philippines and never got back onboard. Once the vessel reached Australia it pretty much sat there languishing in the marina only being maintained as needed with bottom cleaning, zincs, interior/exterior cleaning along with starting the engines (main & generator) every so often. The hours on her are only the hours it took to get her from Hong Kong to Australia. Inside she is pristine, outside she is showing some fading and sun bleaching of the paint and canvas but other than that she is in fantastic condition. Even though the owner never used or got back onboard the boat he spared no expense in keeping the boat maintained. Example: Just prior to me purchasing the boat he had contracted someone to repair some of the small “tear stains”, aka tiny rust spots, on the topside and repaint with KiwiGrip along with a repair and paint of a small area on port side where there was some scraped paint due to a disagreement with a dock during a move from one marina to another. He even installed 4 new AGM batteries (2 for each of the Side-Power thrusters) just prior to me purchasing the boat.
Again, she looks like a new boat and I couldn’t be more pleased. She also comes with one of the most complete, and redundant, Simrad navigation packages I’ve seen on a DD, along with countless other upgrades. It’s almost like the owner told SHM to install all the latest and greatest equipment available. The Seller also included a Highfield Classic 340 dinghy, including a 20hp Honda 4-stroke motor along with a 5 hp 2-stroke Yamaha kicker, both with less than 3 hours on them. And if it couldn’t get any sweeter, she came with a Bauer Junior ll dive compressor (never used). She has a ketch rig get home sail package and paravanes along with bow & stern thrusters, a Max-Prop Whisper 5 blade propeller with adjustable pitch (in the water), a Muir Cougar Windlass, SeaFire system and much much more. She truly is my dream boat and quite possibly the best equipped SHM DD built to date. Yes, I’m biased!
Back to the story…
While in Australia I had an out of the water survey done along with me doing a handful of minor repairs after the sale was completed. I was also dealing with registering the boat, which proved to be a bit more complicated than I had anticipated. I ended up hiring a maritime lawyer out of Annapolis, MD which, although adding significantly to my overall cost, it made the entire process much less stressful. I am happy to report I now have a Marshall Islands registry and the official name of my new boat is Duckin Out.
Then there was the process of getting insurance… OMG, what a process that was. Prior to me purchasing the vessel it was insured with Pantaenius out of their Australian office. The vessel had an Australian registry but that had to be canceled because I am not an Australian citizen so getting insurance through Pantaenius was not possible… according to the Broker. I sent emails and Whatsapp messages to four different Insurance Brokers in the USA and only two responded. Both took my information and said they would get back to me. Yeah right! After a couple of weeks of basically nothing I was beginning to get concerned. The Seller had canceled his insurance as of the end of October so I needed to get insurance coverage prior to that. As luck would have it, after some discussions with some dock neighbors, I took their advice and went directly to the local Australian Pantaenius office, which turned out to be only a 3 minute drive from where my boat was docked. Long story short, I was pleasantly surprised the local office was able to give me a quote which turned out to be a lot less $$$ than I had thought it would be. After a lot of back and forth communications between the maritime lawyer, the RMI registry and Pantaenius I can happily say DD 462-15 is flagged and fully insured. Yay!
Now that I am the new owner of DD 462-15 there is still a lot more work to be done before she is blue water ready. Full running and standing rigging inspection, servicing shaft seals, servicing the propeller, removing and reinstalling fuel tank lids with new gasket material (recommended by several current and past DD owners), recharge freezer gas, complete engine servicing for main and generator, all new zincs, replace a broken thruster propeller, etc. etc. etc. All of this work will begin when I return to the land down under at the end of January 2025.
The “plan” is to spend two months getting the boat ready for the long voyage, eventually ending up in either somewhere on the Pacific coast of Mexico or possibly the Atlantic/Caribbean side of Panama (I live in Colombia, South America with a second, vacation home, in Mexico (yes, I am very fortunate to own more than one property in Mexico) so I want/need the boat to be within a reasonable distance with easy access via a short flight to both Mexico and Colombia).
Once all, or most of the work, is completed the “plan” is to depart the Gold Coast of Australia around the end of March or the first part of April which is the end of the typhoon season in that region. From there the “plan” is to head up the eastern coast of Australia for a short distance and then head to the outer Coral Sea for a once in a lifetime experience of scuba diving that area. I am beyond excited about this part of the voyage back to my home port, wherever that might end up being.
To be honest, although I am a lifelong boater, I’ve never owned a vessel this size and this complexity. I started to get a bit concerned that I might not be up to task for the voyage I’m about to undertake.
With the aforementioned being said, I have to share with you about a miraculous thing that happened with regards to me taking “Duckin Out” back to her home port. The same person who invited me to accompany him while he was to take delivery of his DD 462 back in 2014 has agreed to accompany me for the first leg of the long voyage back to home port. As mentioned previously, he is someone I met over ten years ago at one of the Trawlerfest events in Anacortes, WA. Since then we’ve stayed in contact over the years and he has been an invaluable resource in my process of searching for, and eventually purchasing DD 462-15.
As I noted previously, the plan is to departure at the end of March or early April (end of typhoon season). With no strict schedule, the length of this first leg of the voyage back to home port is written in the sand at low tide… As of this writing the “plan” is to depart the Gold Coast and day hop up the east coast of Australia until we arrive to a point, not too far north of the Gold Coast, where we’ll head out towards the outer Coral Sea. The “plan” is to spend a week, or two (or more), diving the Coral Sea and once we’ve seen enough there we’ll head back to the east coast of Australia and work our way north, mostly day hopping, up the coast until we eventually get to Darwin. It’s possible my first mate will get off the boat before Darwin, possibly in Cairns, or he might continue on with me to Darwin, it’s all up to his schedule.
Darwin is where I “plan” to keep the boat while I return home to family. My return to Darwin will also be determined by the typhoon season there in Northern Australia/Indonesia and insurance coverage…
The “plan” for the second leg of the voyage back to home port is to depart Darwin and make the four day run over to Indonesia where I would begin exploring, fishing, diving, spearfishing in and around Indonesia as I work my way towards Malaysia and then on to southern Thailand… working my way to the Philippines, then Japan to Alaska and then down the Pacific coast of North America eventually ending up in either Mexico or possibly Panama.
That all being said, I estimate a direct route from the Gold Coast to Darwin to take at least two months but, with the stop in the outer Coral Sea for a once in a lifetime diving experience along with other factors (if we find other great areas to explore and enjoy while making our way up the east coast of Australia) the trip to Darwin could take 3 months, maybe a bit more or less. Again, all is written in the sand at low tide… I may not reach Darwin this time around and only make it to Cairns. Personally, my time frame from the time I arrive in Australia until I need to go back home is 5 to 6 months max. I need/want to return home to see the little woman and my dog. Yes, the little woman is one helluva trooper!
To be continued….
After more than ten years of dreaming I have finally purchased a Seahorse Marine built Diesel Duck.
Back story... My "dream" actually began a lot more than ten years ago while I was in Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico where I have (had) a second home. I was at the local marina where I saw a salty looking trawler that really caught my eye. It was a Nordhavn 62 named Tesla. I was fortunate enough to find the owners on board and they invited me in for a tour. WOW! I was smitten. Then reality kicked in knowing there was no way I could afford a million dollar plus trawler like this N62. I needed to sell my villa there in Huatulco before I could take the leap. Shortly thereafter I put my villa up for sale and while trying to sell it I went deep down the Nordhavn rabbit hole and became a "Nordhavn Dreamer" but, then while at a Trawlerfest in Anacortes, WA, I came across a Diesel Duck 462 on exhibition. During that Trawlerfest I spent hours each day on that DD and was able to meet the designer of the DD series of boats, the late George Buehler, along with the founder of Seahorse Marine, the late Mr. Bill Kimley. As anyone who had the pleasure of meeting Bill, you will agree his in depth knowledge of trawlers, along with his easy going and jovial demeanor made it easy for me to switch camps and abandon the Nordhavn boats and become a Diesel Duck dreamer.
At that Trawlerfest, or possibly one sometime after, I met another DD enthusiast and we became friends from a distance. At some point he invited me to accompany him on a trip to the Seahorse Marine shipyard located in Zhuhai, China where he was scheduled to take delivery of his DD 462. I jumped on the chance and went to the Seahorse Marine shipyard with him. We spent 3 weeks there where, again, I had the pleasure to spend a lot of time with Bill Kimley. That was back in October of 2014…
Prior to selling my Mexican villa (2 years) I happened to find a DD for sale in Australia that checked all my boxes… I began a dialog with the Broker with what was to become a full 2 years of back and forth communications. Good news, sort of… I finally sold the villa (so I thought) and began more serious negotiations with the Broker only to be shocked by the Buyer of my villa pulling out of the deal at the last moment. The only positive thing for me at that time was the Buyer forfeited his 10% deposit.
Fast forward another year, the same Buyer resurfaced and resubmitted an offer to buy my villa. This time the deal went through without any hiccups.
Now for the really good news…. I would like to announce that I am the proud new owner of a DD 462+ formerly known as Elena M (note: the DD 462+ is actually the newest iteration of the venerable 462 series and is 18 inches longer than all previous DD 462’s). Note: They added the 18 inches in the galley/engine room area along with adding a few inches in the salon.
The purchase story… I flew to Australia the first part of October 2024 and stayed there for 28 days to get the deal, along with the purchase process, completed. Yes, I flew all the way from where I live in South America to Australia without a purchase contract in place but I was very confident, after two years of communicating with the Broker, that once I was there the deal would come together. It was a bit of a risky gamble, especially knowing that I was dealing with a very stubborn Seller who, for the longest time (over 4 years), refused to move off his asking price. In the end, his Broker finally talked some sense into him and convinced him to lower his price to a sensible amount.
Boat history: DD 462-15 is basically a new boat. Explanation… The Seller took delivery in May of 2017 and hired a delivery crew to bring the boat from Hong Kong back to his home port in Queensland, Australia. Without going into too much personal detail about the Seller, as I understand it, he got off the boat when it reached the Philippines and never got back onboard. Once the vessel reached Australia it pretty much sat there languishing in the marina only being maintained as needed with bottom cleaning, zincs, interior/exterior cleaning along with starting the engines (main & generator) every so often. The hours on her are only the hours it took to get her from Hong Kong to Australia. Inside she is pristine, outside she is showing some fading and sun bleaching of the paint and canvas but other than that she is in fantastic condition. Even though the owner never used or got back onboard the boat he spared no expense in keeping the boat maintained. Example: Just prior to me purchasing the boat he had contracted someone to repair some of the small “tear stains”, aka tiny rust spots, on the topside and repaint with KiwiGrip along with a repair and paint of a small area on port side where there was some scraped paint due to a disagreement with a dock during a move from one marina to another. He even installed 4 new AGM batteries (2 for each of the Side-Power thrusters) just prior to me purchasing the boat.
Again, she looks like a new boat and I couldn’t be more pleased. She also comes with one of the most complete, and redundant, Simrad navigation packages I’ve seen on a DD, along with countless other upgrades. It’s almost like the owner told SHM to install all the latest and greatest equipment available. The Seller also included a Highfield Classic 340 dinghy, including a 20hp Honda 4-stroke motor along with a 5 hp 2-stroke Yamaha kicker, both with less than 3 hours on them. And if it couldn’t get any sweeter, she came with a Bauer Junior ll dive compressor (never used). She has a ketch rig get home sail package and paravanes along with bow & stern thrusters, a Max-Prop Whisper 5 blade propeller with adjustable pitch (in the water), a Muir Cougar Windlass, SeaFire system and much much more. She truly is my dream boat and quite possibly the best equipped SHM DD built to date. Yes, I’m biased!
Back to the story…
While in Australia I had an out of the water survey done along with me doing a handful of minor repairs after the sale was completed. I was also dealing with registering the boat, which proved to be a bit more complicated than I had anticipated. I ended up hiring a maritime lawyer out of Annapolis, MD which, although adding significantly to my overall cost, it made the entire process much less stressful. I am happy to report I now have a Marshall Islands registry and the official name of my new boat is Duckin Out.
Then there was the process of getting insurance… OMG, what a process that was. Prior to me purchasing the vessel it was insured with Pantaenius out of their Australian office. The vessel had an Australian registry but that had to be canceled because I am not an Australian citizen so getting insurance through Pantaenius was not possible… according to the Broker. I sent emails and Whatsapp messages to four different Insurance Brokers in the USA and only two responded. Both took my information and said they would get back to me. Yeah right! After a couple of weeks of basically nothing I was beginning to get concerned. The Seller had canceled his insurance as of the end of October so I needed to get insurance coverage prior to that. As luck would have it, after some discussions with some dock neighbors, I took their advice and went directly to the local Australian Pantaenius office, which turned out to be only a 3 minute drive from where my boat was docked. Long story short, I was pleasantly surprised the local office was able to give me a quote which turned out to be a lot less $$$ than I had thought it would be. After a lot of back and forth communications between the maritime lawyer, the RMI registry and Pantaenius I can happily say DD 462-15 is flagged and fully insured. Yay!
Now that I am the new owner of DD 462-15 there is still a lot more work to be done before she is blue water ready. Full running and standing rigging inspection, servicing shaft seals, servicing the propeller, removing and reinstalling fuel tank lids with new gasket material (recommended by several current and past DD owners), recharge freezer gas, complete engine servicing for main and generator, all new zincs, replace a broken thruster propeller, etc. etc. etc. All of this work will begin when I return to the land down under at the end of January 2025.
The “plan” is to spend two months getting the boat ready for the long voyage, eventually ending up in either somewhere on the Pacific coast of Mexico or possibly the Atlantic/Caribbean side of Panama (I live in Colombia, South America with a second, vacation home, in Mexico (yes, I am very fortunate to own more than one property in Mexico) so I want/need the boat to be within a reasonable distance with easy access via a short flight to both Mexico and Colombia).
Once all, or most of the work, is completed the “plan” is to depart the Gold Coast of Australia around the end of March or the first part of April which is the end of the typhoon season in that region. From there the “plan” is to head up the eastern coast of Australia for a short distance and then head to the outer Coral Sea for a once in a lifetime experience of scuba diving that area. I am beyond excited about this part of the voyage back to my home port, wherever that might end up being.
To be honest, although I am a lifelong boater, I’ve never owned a vessel this size and this complexity. I started to get a bit concerned that I might not be up to task for the voyage I’m about to undertake.
With the aforementioned being said, I have to share with you about a miraculous thing that happened with regards to me taking “Duckin Out” back to her home port. The same person who invited me to accompany him while he was to take delivery of his DD 462 back in 2014 has agreed to accompany me for the first leg of the long voyage back to home port. As mentioned previously, he is someone I met over ten years ago at one of the Trawlerfest events in Anacortes, WA. Since then we’ve stayed in contact over the years and he has been an invaluable resource in my process of searching for, and eventually purchasing DD 462-15.
As I noted previously, the plan is to departure at the end of March or early April (end of typhoon season). With no strict schedule, the length of this first leg of the voyage back to home port is written in the sand at low tide… As of this writing the “plan” is to depart the Gold Coast and day hop up the east coast of Australia until we arrive to a point, not too far north of the Gold Coast, where we’ll head out towards the outer Coral Sea. The “plan” is to spend a week, or two (or more), diving the Coral Sea and once we’ve seen enough there we’ll head back to the east coast of Australia and work our way north, mostly day hopping, up the coast until we eventually get to Darwin. It’s possible my first mate will get off the boat before Darwin, possibly in Cairns, or he might continue on with me to Darwin, it’s all up to his schedule.
Darwin is where I “plan” to keep the boat while I return home to family. My return to Darwin will also be determined by the typhoon season there in Northern Australia/Indonesia and insurance coverage…
The “plan” for the second leg of the voyage back to home port is to depart Darwin and make the four day run over to Indonesia where I would begin exploring, fishing, diving, spearfishing in and around Indonesia as I work my way towards Malaysia and then on to southern Thailand… working my way to the Philippines, then Japan to Alaska and then down the Pacific coast of North America eventually ending up in either Mexico or possibly Panama.
That all being said, I estimate a direct route from the Gold Coast to Darwin to take at least two months but, with the stop in the outer Coral Sea for a once in a lifetime diving experience along with other factors (if we find other great areas to explore and enjoy while making our way up the east coast of Australia) the trip to Darwin could take 3 months, maybe a bit more or less. Again, all is written in the sand at low tide… I may not reach Darwin this time around and only make it to Cairns. Personally, my time frame from the time I arrive in Australia until I need to go back home is 5 to 6 months max. I need/want to return home to see the little woman and my dog. Yes, the little woman is one helluva trooper!
To be continued….
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