84: NARROWING IT DOWN. WHICH ONE WILL WE BUY? Lagoon 45, Leopard 39, Leopard 40

Hey baby. Hey. You look so beautiful with your tan. Thank you. We are very thankful to be here on Isla Morada in the Florida Keys and we are staying at a friend's house. Thank you very much for allowing us to stay at your house. Oh let's give a little shout out. Craig we love you. And we have a beautiful view of the canals and we are here to look for a boat and that is our purpose in being in the Keys but we are in the meantime just loving being here. Well there are a lot of boats down here right? There are a lot of boats down here and this is the only place really that we can get to see boats because with COVID all the countries are closed so we don't have much of a choice but the good news is there are a lot of great boats in southern Florida. And we are really getting into the cruiser community down here. There's some super nice people that have been introduced to us through our boating friends and we've been doing some sailing while we're here and we've been looking at boats and we will talk more about this in future videos. Yeah but for now we want to tell you about the boats that we have looked at already and our big search and why they haven't or haven't worked out or why they're still on the list. Hey let's do a little pan of this so we're on the top of this house right here and it's right in Venetian shores and we are on one of the canals and the sun is getting ready to set and you can even see some mass over there in the distance a lot of power boats and this is very close that bridge over there takes you to the ocean and there's the sound over there. Do you like the sound of that? We love the sound of the Florida Keys. Isla Mirada we love you. And we love the fact that you guys are watching right now. If you like this new direction that we're on starting with our journey living aboard a catamaran we just hope that you will subscribe and hit the like button and share and also tell them about the bell babe. Ring the notification bell so that you can know when we have posted a new video. We are starting a new phase in our life. I don't know whether you've done that or not and we just pinch ourselves and we hope that you will follow us on this journey. So we've been searching for a boat since May haven't we? Uh yes about early May. Yeah since we were still in China and it's been a really interesting experience. We named this video as the boat turns we named this video as the boat turns we named this video as the boat turns to parody the soap opera drama as the world turns which spanned over 54 years because it seems like this search has gone on forever Let's start first with this funny but true Chris Hogan episode on the four regretful purchases. Stay tuned because he gives some very wise advice at the end. You know regret is interesting isn't it? Because you can look back it's where you have awareness. You know awareness means you can look at something and go oh I wish I hadn't done that. You know I wish I hadn't went down that path. Here's the top four things that people said that they have regretted buying. Number one came in at boats. Oh yeah you know the the old saying is true. The best two days of owning a boat are the day that you buy it and the day that you sell it. I've heard that one before. But the bottom line is boats are expensive. My goodness you know all the upkeep and we never think about that right you just think about the the the fun that you'll have on it. So it's better just to have a friend with a boat. I got a few friends with boats. God maybe we're not very smart are we? After watching that even warning we're proceeding with this madness? Absolutely. Are you sure? We're in. We are all in. Oh god I thought you were smart. Our search includes six boats and we are mentioning pricing along also with the real cost which includes additional things that we're going to need to add to the boat in order to get it to do what we're doing. Like a water maker. Or a washing machine. Many of these things were discussed in our episode 82 video what type of boat for the crewless crew. As we make this video our boat choice is still undecided. So please help us and comment below which boat we should buy and why. Will you do that for us? Would you appreciate that tweeting? Absolutely. Great we know all the help we can get right? Yep. Okay the first boat that we looked at was a little like your first boyfriend or girlfriend back in junior high. You remember that feeling was real and it was intense but hey it was probably a good idea you didn't get married right? Yes. Actually this boat God it was a really good boat. It was a beautiful boat. Yeah. Ready to move in and sail. But it's a little expensive. I think we would have paid too much for it and we got smarter as we learn more right? Yes and with COVID I'm not sure we could have gotten there. Here's the lovely 2014 Lagoon 45 located in Greece right outside of Athens that was just reduced $30,000 and it had everything we wanted. Just look at this thing it looks brand new with new canvas enclosures and cushions a spacious cockpit huge salon with light wood veneer along with a sizable u-shaped kitchen a cummins onion diesel generator which runs your air conditioning and fresh water maker and really important is a washing machine because we're living on this boat and it's just super convenient. It's a three cabin layout which means you have a private hole with large bathroom instead of a fourth cabin along with a lot of extra storage space. In addition it has 600 watts of solar to run electrical devices such as refrigerators and freezers. It also has a front cockpit which enables you to lounge and catch breezes at anchor along with a really nice center console dinghy. The real cost on this boat was $429,000 because nothing needed to be added to it but it turns out that the owner did not accept our offer because another buyer wanted to buy the entire charter company and the boat had to go with it so we were very disappointed at this unexpected surprise with our first boat love affair. Boat number two in our search is the award-winning 2011 Leopard 44 from French Polynesia. It won its awards for being the first boat to invent the covered front lounge which catches the breeze because at anchor you catch the breezes because you face the wind. It is a four cabin design which enables us to have a room dedicated to storage kind of like a really small garage. It has a spacious kitchen and salon with white cherry veneers giving it a more traditional look. In addition it has air conditioning, a water maker, and solar making the real cost of this boat $349,000 because it has everything. However, when we offered to buy it it turns out that it was already under contract and the broker failed to indicate that on the listing because they wanted to attract more buyers in case the bill fell through which led us to our second love and gone bad. This next boat is the sexy 2008 Leopard 46 made famous by the sailing couple the O'Kellys who have a YouTube channel that we just love. This red vinyl wrap beauty's name is Zoe and she resides in Fort Lauderdale. Among her attractive features are the spacious cockpit with plenty of seating making this a great party boat. In addition it has a cavernous salon with a comfortable sectional which makes it a great living space along with a large kitchen for a boat this size. Gourmet meals anyone? The asking price on this boat was $380,000 and she had everything but because its marines survey revealed a mere average condition we steered away from this boat because we would have had to spend a lot to get it to where we needed it making the real cost at least $425,000 especially considering its age so we passed on the girl in red. So now we are considering something that we thought that we would never consider it used to be a non-starter and that is hurricane damaged boats. We are considering two boats that were damaged in the 2017 hurricane Irma which just laid a path of devastation through the Caribbean and damaged more than 60,000 boats. Now from what we've learned is a lot of repairs have been made that are really good so considering some of these boats represents a real value. It's a risk but it's a real value but we've learned some things that have made us comfortable with the repairs. Here's more on that subject which focuses on the world-class moorings British Virgin Islands repair center. Take a look and you judge for yourself. We recently suffered a pretty catastrophic hurricane here hurricane Irma. We were very fortunate to be able to put together a team of 80 highly skilled workers who came from all corners of the world who brought with them their expertise and knowledge to enable us to repair these boats to a world-class standard. These are people who have a ton of experience. Once the boatyard work is completed the yachts will get launched and our team will get started on the in-water refit which covers interior work, mass stepping, deck work and we utilize the same highly skilled workforce. When the work is nearing completion there is a survey and sea trial done to find any outstanding items that remain. Once the surveyor and buyer are satisfied that the conditions have been addressed properly with the newly finished yacht the acceptance of vessel will be signed. The end result is a yacht that looks better than any chartered yacht out there. The first repaired hurricane damaged boat we are considering is the 2015 Leopard 40 named We Are Nuts and here is the marine inspection which is called a survey and it details all of the many repairs made to the boat and you might just say that we are nuts for considering this boat but surprisingly it was repaired to like new condition. Check out this post repair video made especially for Eileen and me showing the finished product. And here we have the beautiful Leopard 40 We Are Nuts. So this boat needs a clean but essentially it is ready to go. It's looking very good. It's spent some time in the yard. On this particular boat I had the pleasure of talking to the owners when they were here. Obviously kind of like pre-covid lockdown and to say they were excited about the condition of their boat is a bit of an understatement. They were absolutely beaming with joy. Couldn't stop chattering about how good the yacht had looked. Bear in mind you know they've had this boat since new they've followed in its progression over time and although they've been kind of like relatively happy with the standard of like mid charter maintenance. Nothing prepared them for the condition of the boat once it had gone through a full refit at the hands of our independent boatyard crew who number about 130 people mostly from different areas of Europe and the Caribbean and they in their words not mine they said the boat hasn't looked like this since the year that they bought it. Coming down into the owner's suite stand back so you can have a look beautiful loads of headroom loads of space the entire starboard hull dedicated to the owners. Coming in to the head just look at the size of this it's so big. Then we've got the forward access okay what this means is with I want to get to the bow trampoline sail looks very new. The reason we're considering this boat is that the non-hurricane damage equivalent to this boat would cost as much as $100,000 more so this makes it a great value but it does come with some risk. The asking cost is $330,000 but the real cost with upgrades is 360k. The verdict is still out on this one. Will we buy it or the next one you're about to see? Please comment below along with a reason for your decision. This might really help us out. The second repaired hurricane damage boat that we are still deciding on is a 2008 Voyage 500 and it is located in the Florida Keys where we are currently residing. It's 50 feet long and considerably longer than the previous longest Leopard 44 and is made by the boutique South African Boat Builder Voyage. It has a trademark upscale spartan appearance with very little exposed wood which means lower maintenance costs. It has a spacious cockpit with newly repainted table, twin helm seat with new B&G electronics and radar, large salon with comfortable seating and a sizable retro looking u-shaped kitchen with a four burner Italian stove and oven along with Corian and two sinks. The hulls are lightweight for extra speed and no nonsense with four cabins with beds that extend into the middle of the boat. It comes with a water maker and two brand new 56 horsepower Yanmar diesel engines. Last but not least is the 14 foot Hypalon dinghy with center console and a 60 horsepower Yamaha engine. The boat is being offered for sale to us by a friend of a friend and because of that we don't have to pay the built-in 10% brokerage commission. The price on this one is $310,000 and the real cost to add more solar is $325,000. Which boat did we buy? The previous Leopard 40 or this one? Thanks for watching and stay tuned to our next video showing us sailing one of these beautiful boats in the Keys.