We Bought a Boat!

One day while my partner Zoe and I were doing our daily routine of exchanging links to random things - I happened to stumble upon a 30ft Sailing Yacht for sale for £5000 down in Ipswich - it seemed like a steal, so I sent it over to Zoe simply stating "this looks too cheap."

Now a bit of background, I'm from Australia, I grew up 30m from the Gold Coast Beaches and spent most summers in the sea. I'm an average free diver and even worse spear fisherman, and even here in East Anglia you might catch me on my little inflatable dinghy diving in the North Norfolk coast Looking to scare fish away.

Zoe on the other hand loves the beach from the land; Beach walks, beach photos, beach everything! However, she isn't an 'in the water type' - she will come out on my little boat with me, but she isn't coming diving, however does love adventure!

When we built our Campervan (which you can read about here) I built a garage space under the bed which allows my 3.3m inflatable boat, 15HP outboard and dive gear to fit underneath, so for the last few years we have been exploring coastlines off the little dingy. Our lifetime dream is to sail the world - Ultimate Off-Grid Living!

Now when I sent Zoe the link, Her response was "we should go look at that" and that was where the spark came from. All of a sudden we were pricing marinas, running spreadsheets for costs (I love a spreadsheet), calling marinas to get pricing for moorings and scouring the internet for other options. By the next weekend we had 3 Sail boats and 3 motorboats to look at.

My dream was a sail boat, Zoe's idea was to look at Motorboats, and after spending the weekend looking at different boats, I came around to Zoe's idea. We looked at boats ranging from 28 to 33ft, And realised we really needed something 30ft +

I love the idea of the sail boats, but unless we were planning to actually sail somewhere they were just too much of a compromise in terms of space and layout. The motorboats were definitly feeling right for us and now we had narrowed a list down to what we wanted:

1. Motorboat

2. 2 bedrooms

3. 2 heads (bathrooms for the land-lovers)

4. Diesel engines

5. 30ft minimum!

Neither one of us were sold on the selection we looked at over the weekend, but it had helped us narrow down what we were looking for. We were researching heavily!

The Birchwood Viceroy

We found a 33ft Birchwood Viceroy locally, this is an Aft Cabin Motorboat - It ticked all the boxes that we had at the time aside from only having 1 head. It needed a bit of work, but nothing we were scared of and the price was good. We arranged to go look at it and fell in love- BUT we still had others to look at, so we took a bunch of photos, and held it in our hearts as we moved on.

The Princess 37

We later found a Princess 37 listed locally also, this ticked all the boxes with 2 bedrooms, 2 heads and was a different layout to the Viceroy, being that the lounge opens up into the rear cockpit creating a lovely big space. We took a weekend and Looked at the Birchwood Viceroy again and then went to check out this Princess 37. Zoe and I both agreed the Princess was now the layout and size we wanted! We walked away from the Birchwood and went back to researching Princess 37. We was searching what spec they came in, reviews on them etc to weigh out the pros and cons, and to see whether the princess was the vessel to meet our boating needs.

The Offer

After crunching the numbers on what we could afford, both on purchase of the boat and on Marina fees- we decided we could make it work and requested a second viewing on the Princess 37 locally. This specific one I had since found out was a bit of a base spec with smaller engines and a less desirable hull shape, however it presented very original and tidy and there just weren't many to compare it to in a similar price point, or near us!

It was the oddest viewing I could imagine where the Broker (the sales manager actually) had taken us for the 2nd viewing, and was actually saying all he could say to talk most people out of purchasing the boat. He was telling us horror stories of boats and really talking the boat down, It was very odd, but after taking a few days we weren't deterred and submitted an offer, the response from the broker: "No"

No counter

No banter

just "No"

So we came back with a counter, and the response again "No"

Now I know this wasn't big money in the grand scheme of Motorboats, but moving inventory is still a win and we just couldn't believe how lacklustre this entire exchange was!

And then just as Zoe and I had almost lost all of our hope in our boat dream - Zoe found another Princess 37! We both couldn't believe it! It had the more desirable hull shape and bigger engines, It looked lovely and had just had a full survey on it. The best part? The price was far lower than what we had offered for the local one, I said to Zoe "That's our boat" and the very next morning I was on the phone to the broker, got a copy of the survey and had a cheeky offer accepted - The challenge? The boat was located in Upton Upon Severn - The other side of the country to us, but we will get to that!

The River Trial

We set off the following weekend to do the river trial for our potential new to us Princess 37, We took our campervan, drove the 4 odd hours over to the marina and met the broker and the owner. We toured the boat, took it out for a cruise on the river, then asked for the night to confirm our decision.

The Decision

That night we went out to dinner, Slept in the van and the next day went back to the marina and asked to take another look by ourselves. The broker was great, very friendly and obliging and the owner was excellent answering all of our questions.

We sat in the lounge, Looked at each other and bit the bullet, we were going to buy this boat! and now we just had to figure how to get it home...

Click here to see how we got it home, and what we are doing with it now!