Our Journey and a New Member of Our Family

Phoenix Hunter at anchor in James Bay, Prevost Island, July 2013

2013 is now behind and we have completed our first cruising year with our new to us boat, Phoenix Hunter.  It has been a wonderful time and we have no regrets.  As a couple, we are new to boating.  I had a quarter share in a 28' sail boat that I sold out of 20 years ago but I really must consider myself a rookie in all of this.   Perhaps my reflections may be helpful for wannabe owners.

The journey to where we are now has been an interesting one with many turns.  In February 2011 I was facing retiring within 2 years.  My wife Pam said to me "What ARE you going to do with yourself".  I had made plans all throughout my life, including preparing myself financially for retirement but I had no concrete plans once I got there.  The discussion was a bit heated but I said what I really wanted to do was see the British Columbia coast...really see it.  I had put a lot of time on commercial fishing boats but hadn't operated any larger vessels on my own.  But to see the BC coast, you have to do it by boat.  There is so little access to it by car.  But what boat?

So I started to look.  I felt that our plans would require us to be at sea for about 2 months at a time.  I wanted something small enough that I could comfortably operate it myself but fuel efficient, and at a decent price.  It had to be self-sufficient.  I started looking and thought the CHB 34 was a good option.  I got on a couple of these and liked what I saw. I thought so anyways.  We probably got onto 5-6 of these boats. Many had a musty smell. Pam got on one and said "too small...and don't even think that I will put up with those odors!"

Then we got on a Performance Trawler 38.  There was a nice one for sale in Olympia.  It was on the market for over 18 months and we watched the listing price drop from $138 k to less than $89 k.  We were saddened we didn't pull the trigger but we really weren't ready to buy.

We went to several boat shows and started to refine our search a bit more.  We decided we liked the Europa or Sedan style. We liked the forward master stateroom and an aft cockpit that would be good for getting the dog on an off the boat.  The walk around side decks were nice. We thought we could make one of these work.  The Ocean Alexander Europa 40 looked like a good idea but many of these as well as the Grand Banks vessels were twin engines. 

                In the meantime we wanted to get some experience. Pam had no experience on the water at all but we did know she didn't get seasick and she did like being on nice beaches in remote areas.  We felt she could easily get used to the Trawler lifestyle.  We took Power Squadron together and Pam got the 2nd highest mark in the class, with her husband trailing afterwards.  In the meantime I did some boat handling with a friend who was commercial fisherman, practicing docking etc.  Pam did a 2 day "women and boating course".  Then we did a couple of bareboat charters to Desolation Sound.  From all of this we found we really enjoyed the whole experience of exploring.  One of these boats was a Grand Mariner with teak decks.  It was a nice boat but it did have a slight musty odor and a leaking side deck (discovered one rainy day).

My commercial fishermen friends had convinced me that 2 engines meant twice the expense and twice the hassle.  Better to carefully maintain one engine.  A surprisingly large number of trawlers were overpowered for what we wanted to do.  Traveling at 2 GPH was what I wanted to do.

            When you go to boat shows, you get on boats that you wouldn't ordinarily get on otherwise.  Really nice boats!  Ones you cannot possibly afford but think you can!  Pam says it’s like the show "Say Yes to the Dress!"  Never try on a wedding dress you can't afford!  But in the process I came to the conclusion that I really wanted a pilothouse.  If I got one of those, I could pretend I was a commercial fisherman.  We looked at North Pacific Trawlers which looked really nice, as did the Pacific Trawler 40.  The relatively new North Pacific Trawler was more expensive that what we could afford. We missed out on a really good opportunity on a Pacific Trawler 40, but again, we weren't quite ready to buy.  At the boat shows I'd stepped on some Kadey Krogens but these were larger vessels, too expensive and more boat than realistic for us. 

Then I got on a KK42, November 2012.  It was then that I really thought I'd found the boat I wanted.  It really was a love at first sight thing.  The boat layout and size I felt was perfect.  What’s more, I knew Pam would feel the same way.  She had just had ankle surgery and was unable to get on any boats for several months.  But these boats were more expensive than I felt we could afford. The listings in the Washington were for $235k plus.  It costs Canadians almost 25% more to bring an Asian made boat across the border.  That would have been a financial hardship.

Then we found one, a private sale, a 1985 model listed for $210K.  It was beautiful…we felt.  Pam really loved the boat.  It was everything we wanted.  They had done a substantial refit, with a rebuilt helm, partial rewiring, new fuel tanks updated appliances and heads.  It showed really nice. We discovered there had been a failed offer.  The surveyor at the time had identified potential problems with the procedure where the teak decks had been removed. Also there was some limited blistering on the hull.  The owner decided to do a blister peel and epoxy barrier coat.  We pulled the trigger and made an offer and after dickering, had an agreement to purchase.  We proceeded with a sea trial, survey, mechanical inspection and haul out.  My surveyor was quite negative:  “Nothing good can come from those decks”.  In addition, there was a conspicuous crack on the faring around the post where the rudder shaft passes through the hull , visible on haul-out.  He tried to convince me to consider something much newer or else something much cheaper.  “You can get all kinds of boats for far less than that.  You’ll never get your money out of this boat when you sell it.  We tried to renegotiate with the owner but they balked.  We backed out of it.  We’d just spent $2,000 on the process and were very, very disappointed.

I still liked the KK 42 very much.  I have a former colleague in the fishing business who is a journey man shipwright…not a wannabe but the real deal.  Murray is well known in commercial fishing circles.  He’s one of those guys who does corking, replacing planks and all that stuff.  Also he has done extensive work on fiberglass boats.  As he told me, you can’t get far in this industry without knowledge of working with fiberglass.  We discussed the KK42 and he confessed he didn't know the boat.  Murray had just come back to town after a winter in Palm Springs.  So I asked him if he could accompany me to look at one for sale in Anacortes.  Murray went through the boat and pointed out things that concerned him with this particular boat, a 1988 model.  This included some delamination around the salon window (what had caused that) and as wavy pattern on external fiberglass/gelcoat on the pilothouse and salon area.  He indicated that it would cost upwards of about $20,000 to make good, perhaps more if work revealed more issues.

A number of weeks went by since my trip with Murray when the owners of the KK42 on which we had previously had an offer contacted us to say they had reduced the price.  Were we interested?  I said we were but I wanted to take my shipwright down to look at her.  Murray and I went to look at the boat.  Prior to coming aboard I briefed Murray about the concerns with the deck and the rudder problem.  We were onboard for an hour and Murray checked the boat throughout looking for evidence of water penetration into the decks.  I learned a lot from Murray that day.  We thanked the owners and left.  When we got into the car Murray had two words for me “BUY IT”.  If I liked KK42’s, this one was far superior to the 1988 sister ship that we went to previously.   Some really nice work had been done on her with some Cadillac features.  He said I’d have to put in a considerable amount of money into the 1988 vessel to bring it to the same standard.  The decks were fine—not how he would have dealt with them but there was no water ingress.  The rudder repair might cost $2-5,000, worst case scenario, perhaps another $5,000 if the decks needed work.  We made an offer for the vessel as is which was accepted.

I learned a lot through this process:  how to buy a boat.  The process was painful to be sure, and it takes a lot of time.  Most importantly it’s important not just to bring a surveyor aboard but also those knowledgeable of the procedures for doing any necessary work.  Often they have a better feel for what are real issues than surveyors do.  My colleague the shipwright gave me a peace of mind about the boat we were interested in—the surveyor scared the heck out of me!  A friend has said we bought our second boat first.  I hadn't thought about that but rather than be lured in with the first boat or boats we saw, be remained patient and careful and within reason that paid off in the end. Often times people buy boats and then change their minds several years later, either upsizing, downsizing, or just plain selling the boat after a short period of time.

We have owned Phoenix Hunter for 7 months now and have put 165 hours on the engine and 6 weeks worth of trips.  In addition, She's our waterfront apartment in Steveston and we have spent quite a few nights on her at the dock.  Except for a few very small problems and some operator error, everything has gone well.  The rudder repair went very well.,  Very important though is we have no regrets.  Initially I had one of those  “have we got ourselves over our heads?” moments.  But as we reflect on our boat, we really must say there is nothing lacking or anything more than we wanted.