End of an Era?

    Even though I had meant to continue publishing blogs again after a long lapse, I was surprised to see the that last entry was in June. Where has this year gone?

  Faithful followers of this blog may recall the bird problem we had at Clearwater Harbor Marina and that for no apparent reason, the Gackles that had been plaguing us just decided to go somewhere else. As a result, we quit flying our decoy goose that was very effective in keeping the birds away that flew in at first light and left right at sunrise, and conversely, came in a horde at sunset and made their departure at last light. It was like clockwork, and they made a hell of a mess. I also employed a predatory bird call recording that was played at those times that I felt worked to a degree but annoyed the residents of a condo complex nearby, so I was considerate and eliminated the use of the recordings which appeared to not make much of a difference at the time.

  However, Hurricane Ian made an appearance this fall and although we had no ill affects after that storm passed to the south of us, the birds came back in droves.

  We had already been going to Swing Set less and less over the summer due to the fact that we were enjoying our new home, but red tide in the area put a damper on boating as well, so we found ourselves just going to the boat to wash it and come back home.

  I began toying with the idea of selling Swing Set. The construction at Coachman's Park in Clearwater was in full swing and left the parking situation less than to be desired, and having guests out required a complex regimen of instructions as to where to park and I'm less than forgiving when it comes to insisting guests to be on time for departure, as I rely on tide and current tables to determine when we leave the dock. The indicators that I started focusing on were telling us it was time to put our boat on the market.

 Another event was Hurricane Ian itself. The boat manufacturing industry was just getting back from the Covid shutdown, and now Ian had just destroyed thousands of boats in southern Florida. I felt like there would be an increase in demand for vessels in good shape, which we know Swing Set to be one of those vessels.

  I threw an ad on Boat Trader at an embarrassingly high price and immediately got a call from a guy whose father had a boat on our dock. He was apparently interested in our boat and be came down with his dad to take a look. He didn't appear to be asking the right questions as far as my experience was concerned, and before he left he said he liked the boat, but his wife would really want two staterooms. I thanked him for coming and wondered if his wifes opinion mattered (and it does) why didn't he bring her instead of his father? Soon after that we listed our boat with a broker.

  The proprietor of Tierra Verde Yacht Sales came to our boat soon after and really liked our boat. We decided on a more realistic price to offer her at, and within two days I got a call from the broker with an offer, albeit a low one. We countered with a nudge up in price just a bit, but they were pretty firm, but I got the broker to lower his fee and we reached an agreement pending on a sea trial and survey.

  It turned out that the purchaser was a multi-millionaire from Africa and he was having his "agent" do the purchasing and handling the inspection. At first I was miffed by the low offer, but then decided to not let those type of things bother me, so we scheduled a date for survey and a haul out at our chosen boat yard for an out of water inspection.

  The night before we were all to meet at our marina, we get a message at 9:30P.M. that the sea trial was off. The surveyor was "ill" and was not going to make it. I sent our broker a one word response, "Bullshit".

  It turns out that the purchaser was not happy either, and he told his agent to fire the surveyor and use one that our broker would recommend. We were back in business and scheduled the sea trial for the week after Thanksgiving.

  In the meantime, we were so certain that all would go well that we started looking at a replacement for Swing Set that we could leave on a high and dry storage rack and eliminate all the cleaning and maintenance of having a boat in the water. We found one all too easily and unwisely put a deposit on a smaller center console, contingent on us selling our Sea Ray. I'm not entirely ignorant of winding up with two boats, or three, if you count the dinghy.

  On the morning of the sea trial and haul out, our broker and the surveyor was late in getting to our marina, then he tells me the haul out is to take place in just over an hour, which was two hours before what he had initially told me. Not only that, but the all important agent wasn't even going to ride along, but meet us in Tarpon Springs as he was running late. This development required us to run at our cruising speed of 24 M.P.H. up to the boat yard, something we hadn't done for over an hour in some time.

But Swing Set was up to the task and ran like a top. One thing that helped is that while we adjusted to the new sea trial date, Rosie and I removed about four carloads of stuff from the boat that we had accumulated in the 18 years we've owned her. I had also left the dinghy at the dock, and didn't leave room for argument when I told the broker that we were marketing the boat as a trawler, and if I was being asked to run it like an express cruiser, the dinghy was coming off.

  The sea trial and inspection seemed like it went off without a hitch. The surveyor said he saw nothing to indicate that the sale would fall through, and as we waiting for word from the buyer, based on the surveyor report, our excitement grew in regard to the purchase of a new center console, but we had reservations about where we were going to have to keep it. The nicer facilities were all full up, with as long as a year waiting list. Still, our enthusiasm grew.

  Then the bottom dropped out.

  The oil analysis came back "bad". We were not privileged to the data, but had to take the word of the agent. Our surveyor also mentioned that the engine blocks for some 1996 3116 Caterpillar engines were also "bad" and there was a recall that according to him was never done on our engines and the serial numbers indicated that those in that series were part of the recall.

  We have heard this all before over the years, and the reality is that those blocks that failed all had less than 1000 hours on them, most failed within 300 hours. Our engines have 3000 hours on them and we just proved they could run like new.

Our broker was undeterred. He suggested the sampling method was suspect. Even though we had only 20 hours since the last oil change, he suggested we change the oil and resample after running 10-15 hours on the new oil. At first I balked at his advice, which is typical for me, but then part of his reasoning made sense.

  Our oil changing system is a pump with a manifold. A hydraulic line runs from each main engine as well as the generator. That line never gets completely empty, and residual oil is always in there, and any metal traces are condensed in that line over time and can find their way into the circulating oil. As an aside, the generator oil analysis came back good, as did the transmission oil samples.

  I agreed to change the oil the next day and told our broker to be ready to take oil samples on the day after that, in order to give us time to put the hours on the boat for a resample.

  We spent the night in Tampa Bay after running the boat until dark. We had put a good eight hours on Swing Set and just got set on the hook. We started wondering if we were doing the right thing in selling the boat in the first place.

  The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn. When the brokerage opened I called our broker and told him we would meet him that afternoon and resample our oil and it was his intention on getting an analysis from the same lab, but he was paying for it so we could get the results.

  In the meantime we cruised by the marina where we had intended to keep the center console we had a deposit on. We hated it. It was in an area far from the Gulf of Mexico, a bit of a ride up into Tampa Bay, and the marina was just a bit too industrial for our tastes. But we adjusted our mindset to consider the aforementioned marina as a temporary location until we could get into one closer to our home that was a nicer facility, Marker 1 in Dunedin. We had berthed Swing Set there when we first came up to this area in 2016. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

  We met our broker at the marina near his brokerage and he took oil samples. That was on a Friday. On the next Wednesday, our broker called with the news that the lab saw nothing to indicate abnormal wear on our engines, and that at the age of our boat, the advice was just to monitor each subsequent oil change. No kidding.

  At any rate, the buyer has moved on. He has a contract on another boat, and the $800 we spent on an oil change that we didn't need, as well as the fuel burned in order to resample just bought us some experience.

  We did get to spend a couple nights on the hook that we enjoyed, and we cancelled the purchase of the center console. We feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders.

  Swing Set received the benefit of a weight reducing regimen and we've re-instituted our bird thwarting tactics and it's working. Swing Set remains for sale, but we've adjusted our thinking in regard to just giving it away at a reduced price. In the search for insurance for the smaller boat, we found a broker for a well known company that will insure our boat for ONE THIRD of what we were paying! We also found out during this process that what we are paying for a slip at a floating dock in Clearwater is a bargain compared to other places further from our home, and the construction at Coachman's Park where our marina is seems to be getting close to being finished.

  So, are we still selling? Not sure.