Round 2 Coming Up
Another irresistible boat, another survey...
Last week I was delivering Moondust, freshly restored from winter hibernation, up to Galesville when I got some unexpected news. It was a beautiful, fast-warming day, and I was planning to sneak off and spend a night in Harness Creek on the South River because the weather was so fine. Early spring is a wonderful time to be out on the Chesapeake: (some) warm days, cool nights and very little boat traffic (by which I mostly mean wake-throwing powerboats). My head had slipped into neutral, my body was perfectly relaxed, and Moondust was slipping along in a light breeze from the south. I was unplugged and uncaring.
I didn’t intend to let the outside world intrude on this little tableau, but when I went below to connect my phone to the stereo and fire up a playlist in order to achieve tableau perfection I saw a bunch of notifications communicating a very interesting development. Ten days earlier, just as I was writing the owner of Homefree to formally exit the contract over the wet core, I had received word that a beautifully restored Able Apogee 50 in Georgia (basically a sister ship of Homefree) had just come on the market. It was somewhat outside my budget, but if I could somehow pull it off at least I wouldn’t be needing to do any major work.
I crunched (or was it manipulated?) numbers for a few days, then gulped and put in an offer at the asking price (there are only 12 of these boats in the world and I have learned in the pandemic boat market you can’t mess around). I waited nervously and…was turned down in favor of another offer. I didn’t feel terribly disappointed as I was nervous about the price point, and just continued with my endless Yachtworld search. However, as that search dragged on I did start to wish I had that Georgia Apogee 50 on the hook and started to second-guess the couple of days I took to release myself emotionally from Homefree and work through the daunting numbers before making an offer.
So, that morning on Moondust, when I got a bunch of texts and emails saying that the buyers for the Georgia Apogee 50 had pulled out and that I was next in line if I wanted the boat, I didn’t hesitate. “I’m in,” I quickly texted. A day later I had a contract. Now I am about to go down to Georgia to bite my nails through another survey of another older boat (built in 1998), hoping that all is well with the hull and structure. I have high hopes as the current owners seem meticulous about maintenance, based on a blog they kept about their 3 years with the boat (I bet I was the only potential buyer to read the entire thing). And they put a bunch of money into the boat—redoing everything from plumbing to wiring when they bought it—so it seems unlikely that they would have missed something major, or let some deal-breaking problem fester. Still. Until the surveyor signs off nothing is certain.
You can read all about the history of this design, and this particular boat, courtesy of the owner’s blog, right here (intrepid readers may discover that this boat has a washing machine aboard, which is…not at all my style. But buyers don’t get to decide what a previous owner does).
Anyhow, like Homefree, she is beautiful on deck and below:
But as any sailor can tell you, the state of the machine space is all you really need to know to understand the state of the vessel overall:
I head down to Brunswick on Sunday, and will know what the future holds by Tuesday. I’m pretty excited.
Parting Shot: I am a big believer in the ability of ecosystems to bounce back rapidly if humans will only leave them alone. This amazing story about the way in which South Georgia island (made famous by Shackleton) has recovered (with the help of a few determined activists) from a century of whaling, hunting and invasive species, is a great case in point. We know what to do. We just have to do it.
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