Going to look at boats next week!

We have narrowed our search for a boat to live aboard in Marina del Rey to a shortlist of 10, all between 43 to 50 feet long (13 to 15 meters), most of them built in the eighties. Next Thursday we are flying to LA from Paris and our broker has arranged viewings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately, all but one of the candidates are in or close to Los Angeles: San Pedro, Long Beach, San Diego. The furthest away is one close to San Francisco but we think we will drop it from the list.

Our current favorite is this one:

Essentially three living rooms (one inside, and two outside, which in the California and Florida climates are actually usuable) and two bedrooms. This boat is from 1995 and already berths in MDR. Yes, the boating world has a language of its own, as most people probably already know. Living room is actually called ' saloon' , bedrooms are 'cabins', the kitchen is called ' galley' and a bathroom is referred to as ' head'. Balconies becomes ' cockpits'.

Buying a boat has to be done with great caution as there can be many costly demons lurking underneath shiny exteriors, so the financial stakes are material. Boats like these can cost as much as $1 million new and good, older ones are still not cheap. So usually prospective buyers opt to have a professional perform what is called a 'survey'. which we will likely also do.

It is usually possible to negotiate on price as it is difficult to estimate a fair value of most older boats. For us, quality and features, and ' how it feels' are as or more important than getting the best deal. We look at this as our home for the next 25 or so years, so spending $20 thousand more now to get what we want will be ok.

Wish us luck next week! I will update this blog more actively when we are in LA, going through our process. Anneke and I usually act quickly, so we expect that we will buy the right vessel next week, or shortly thereafter (allowing time for surveys to be done ....).

Ahoy!