Today, we officially became boat owners (at least on paper). We’re just back from the bank, having sent the funds for the final payment.
We’re not in Vancouver to take physical possession of our boat, but legally, we now own all 40 glorious feet of MV Eudora.
It’s kind of a weird feeling. Not being physically there makes it seem less significant than maybe it should. I think we will really feel it and comprehend it once we can actually drink some champagne on the deck.
There were so many steps to get to this point. I think there were at least 100 emails and twice as many phone calls with various important people to make this happen.
First, we viewed the boat with the broker (who also happened to be the seller) on July 31.
Next, we hummed and hah-ed about whether it was the right decision, and made a few phone calls back and forth with the broker to talk price, timing, details, etc. We then emailed back and forth with the paperwork containing the purchase offer, and signed the offer letter late August.
Sending the deposit for the boat was next. This was an ordeal as we were not anywhere near a bank. We had to drive like mad to make it to a branch before it closed. I think we arrived at 3:59pm and they locked the doors at 4:00pm, but we did get the deposit sent in by the deadline.
Arranging the sea trial, mechanical inspection and full boat survey was the next step. We spent September 7 aboard the boat, and it was a glorious day! We had the chance to roam the boat and look inside every nook and cranny. The owner was able to walk us through lots of the systems and features and explain how he had used the boat in the past. We also had our surveyor and mechanic along for the ride, who were going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. We took the boat up the coast to be lifted out of the water and inspected from below, and then we returned to the marina for the final wrap up and questions. It was a full 9-5 day, but it was well worth it.
The mechanical and survey results were available soon after, and we provided these to the insurance company for their policy documents, and to the seller, so that some of the smaller items could be rectified. The mechanical inspection uncovered some mystery sodium in the transmission fluid, so there was more follow up to do with that, and it’s still not quite resolved, more of a wait and keep an eye on it situation.
The last bit of paperwork was to transfer the title to our names, and register the boat with Transport Canada, finalizing our insurance policy, transferring the moorage agreement into our names.
There are many moving parts, and start to finish it’s been two and a half months, but here we are at the end of the road. I’m very thankful that we had a competent boat broker to guide us through the process. It was a lot of work, but we made it. Countdown is on until we can head to the coast and actually be boat owners in person!
