At the end of a April we had a solid prospect. A 1989 CS 36 Merlin that was well equipped for the type of cruising we’ll be doing and reportedly in good condition. I started digging for information. This is what I wanted to know:
- Is she well built, well regarded, and does the design make sense for what we’re doing?
- What are the common quirks we should be looking for?
- What condition is she in and what can we determine about her specific history?
- Is she priced fairly compared to other boats of the same model that have sold recently?
The first was easy. It didn’t take much digging to figure out that Canadian Sailcraft has a really strong reputation for building strong, quick boats that are comfortable liveaboards. Quality manufacturing, two private cabins, tons of water tankage. Done – boat’s good enough. Here’s a review for reference: http://www.canadianyachting.ca/boat-reviews/sail/1207-cs-36-merlin-sail-boat-review
So what problems, if any, do we need to look out for? There were only about a hundred Merlins built in their 5 year run and CS folded up along with many other manufacturers in 1990, so information was not as readily available as for something like a Catalina 30. However, the internet is a hell of a thing and there are still some very dedicated owners out there cataloging valuable information on listservs and forums. I even reached out to a marine surveyor in Toronto that is very familiar with this design. I won’t attempt to list the common issues here, but suffice it to say, I found out what I needed to know and it made for well informed pre-purchase inspections.
Another factor was determining the going market rate for Merlins so we could estimate if this one was fairly priced and what our prospects would be for resale in the US. Luckily, SoldBoats.com takes out most of the guess work. SoldBoats is the back end of Yachtworld that is only visible to registered brokers. The database stores all the information about every boat that has been sold through Yachtworld – time on market, asking versus sale price, location, etc. I asked our broker, Chris Simpson, to give me the run down on the last 5 years of data and this is what he sent back:
What a gold mine! I love these kind of data! All the research I was doing in the early stages would have been so much more precise if I’d had access to SoldBoats. You can slice and dice these data lots of different ways, but the simplest and maybe most telling numbers in this whole mess are the average asking price and the average sale price. The seller for this particular boat was asking $44k, solidly under market, so we were in business.
Word to prospective buyers: any decent broker will give you SoldBoats data upon request. They are some of the most useful data you can get, second only to the marine survey. Asking prices are arbitrary – selling prices are what count.
Next step – see what kind of condition this girl was in. This is where having a good broker made a world of difference. We couldn’t realistically just pop on down to the Virgin Islands (time, money) and we didn’t want to invest $1500 in a marine survey if she was an obvious wreck. We relied heavily on Chris to do this initial screening on our behalf. He visited the boat on at least three or four occasions with a notepad and camera to document every issue he could find. I’d learn about some new quirk with Merlins and send him back for more photos. Crawling around the engine compartment, unscrewing and lifting floorboards, searching for hairline cracks in fiberglass, taking pictures of individual bits of rigging, the frickin’ works. He even knew the cruising history of this specific boat! We basically got 80% of a marine survey for free.
I was also shameless about asking the previous owner (via our brokers) for previous surveys, documentation of repairs, and any other information I could glean. I even managed to found out what the seller had paid for the boat (hint: he got a damn good deal and we intended to capitalize on that). I was probably the biggest pain in the ass any of these guys had ever come across, but I was well-armed when it came time to talk money. If I hadn’t collected all these various bits of information I probably would have just given the guy what he was asking.
After nearly a month of back-and-forth (the seller being in France resulted in big timezone delays on questions), we were ready to make an offer. We came in low. Nearly 30 percent under asking. Our rationale is that we knew what he paid, we had turned up a few issues, and hurricane season was approaching rapidly. Not surprisingly, however, the seller didn’t bite and came back with a much higher counter. We counter-countered. He countered again and said he’d fix some things, but not other things. Cat and I wailed, gnashed our teeth. Days would come and go, more counters. I’d wake up in sweats. We got so emotionally invested in the bidding war that we almost walked when we couldn’t agree on the last thousand bucks. Screw the boat, screw all the time invested, let’s cut this one loose, just because this guy’s being a dick.
But then we stepped back and looked at the situation.
We had a solid boat that was damn near ready to go. The price on the table was well under asking, even if not as low as we’d like. Would she have what we needed in a boat? Yes. Was she in our budget? Yes. Did we want to own her? Yes.
That was it. Why the hell were we still squabbling over a few percentage points? We’re in. We agree. Let’s move forward.
So we signed the formal agreement that states that we’d take the boat at the agreed upon price, conditional to the survey, and put down a deposit. A few days later we had Geoff Williams from West Indies Marine Surveyors climbing the rig, knocking around with a sounding hammer, and taking her out in Drake’s Channel for a test sail. The survey didn’t turn up much that we didn’t already know about, so that was it. One minor tweak to the price and we signed. Paradox was ours.
In reflection.
The whole process was remarkably stressful. Akin to buying a house, but 3000 miles away. Maybe there are some tough souls out there that could have stayed icy through the entire deal, but we got emotionally invested. Classic rookie move. We felt like the buyer was personally affronting us each time he’d refuse our offers. In reality, both parties were after the same thing and played the game well. Once the dust settled, I went from viewing the seller as my nemesis to wanting to send him a bouquet and tell him ‘no hard feelings, mate’ for all the contentiousness.
I can’t emphasize enough the value we gained from good representation. The service we received from Chris at BVI Yacht Sales would have been impressive if we had been buying a half million dollar yacht, let alone our dinky little sailboat on which he earned all of a grand or so after taxes. I should also note that Chris’ wife Karen, who runs the office, was immensely helpful in walking me through the voluminous paperwork required to transfer ownership and re-flag the boat. I recommend them without reservation to anyone looking to buy or sell in that part of the world.
Only time will tell whether all this effort and money we’ve poured in to due diligence will pay off, but we’re feeling good.
So that’s it, an extremely subjective guide to buying a boat in a far away land.
18 Comments
Leave your reply.