Boat Purchasing

We are 1st time boat owners.  We did a lot of online research and a ton of YouTube videos to figure out what boat we wanted.  We knew we wanted a bout that could sleep two couples and kids in the salon.  We obviously had a budget of under 50k.

We were not too familiar with all the technology that came with boats and based on marina research we wanted to be withing 40 foot and twin diesel engines due to low end torque and reliability.

We looked at express cruisers and our goal was Catalina Island visits.  We had learned that we needed to go through a broker and not a private seller and pay for a full survey which included haul-out and mechanical.

We hooked up with Infinity Yachts who seemed to have a lot of inventory in San Diego.  Nothing that triggered our interest.  We lived on Boat Trader and some others.  We found a boat in Los Alamitos Bay and was a 1990 Bayliner 3888.

What is crazy is we sold our cabin in the mountains was called “Bear Necessities” and owned it for a couple years and enjoyed a couple white Christmas.  We turned our profits with a little extra cash we had that allowed us to purchase a yacht with cash.

The boat we decided on was this 1990 Bayliner 3888 in Long Beach.  An old man who had passed away had apparently been keeping it in good condition.  When you buy a boat, you are buying into the previous owner’s experience.

We entrusted our broker infinity yachts to hook us up with both a Haul out Survey and a mechanical survey, this way we thought we would be protected from any unexpected issues.

We did the haul out which is listed below, and this guy was good and gave us great advice.  The mechanical survey went as planned with Seatech Marines and gave us a list of issues that they had discovered.

Because we trusted the service providers due to, they were recommended by the Byers Broker, he produced a list of over 11k worth of mechanical issues that we needed repaired.  Trusting this guy to do the work he was hired to do the repairs.  So obviously we went with this guy to complete the repairs.

Little did we know after some time this mechanic Cesar Sosa repaired items that did not need fixing and painted items to look like they had been replaced.  Everything he expensed and we paid for was not done in accordance with safety.

When got the boat to our dock in San Diego, we have had oil leaks, fuel leaks, and have spent more than over 5k extra on items that Cesar never repaired and cheated us on.  We know have a leaking fuel tank that Cesar dropped the ball on and now have a Coast Guard Incident for Diesel fuel leakage in the bay.  Our new mechanic just yesterday pumped just over 14 gallons of leaking fuel.

We are going to take these companies to court once we get a full count of extra dollars.  Please do extra research to make sure who you hire to check your boat are true caring people who are out to look out for you and not to align their pockets with us inexperienced boaters.

Keep receipts and records in case you need to hire help to stop these crooks from ripping is newbies off form buying boats to enjoy Bluewater cruising.