Sail away with Paul Chopin.

Having completed my sailing course on a Bavaria 37 I then found a Bavaria38 for sale in Greece. Corresponding with the agent and then the seller I decided it would be worth making an offer and, if accepted, would go out to view it. Several offers and counter offers later we finally came up with a price to suit both, I went and booked the flight to Athens, a car hire to get to the boatyard, and someone to complete a survey whilst I was out there. I arrived at the boatyard the evening before the agent and surveyor were due to meet me. I had a quick look around the yacht and most of it appeared to be in very good condition. I had concerns with a few things, but, not being an expert, I would leave this to the surveyor to tell me. The following morning the agent and surveyor turned up as arranged and the surveyor set to work, donning his overalls and getting out a camera, notepad and some electronic gadgets. A number of hours later all was complete and after a chat with the surveyor and the agent I was handed an interim report identifying items that needed addressing, considered to be insurance requirements and those that needed addressing as cosmetic! All things considered, I could live with these, and thoughts about an offer were going through my head on the drive back to the airport. I did have to stop off on the way back to take some photos, the views were breath taking. Back at the airport I composed a letter to the buyers highlighting the faults that were identified, and subject to the full report, made another offer. This was duly accepted, taking into consideration the items that needed to be remedied. A couple of days later I received the full report, read through it from cover to cover, and thought that there were no further items that hadn’t already been identified as needing attention. I then got back in contact with the seller and confirmed that I would continue with the purchase. Deposit duly paid I sat back and waited to hear when the completion date would be. However, all was not well. My intention was to buy with my brother and he no longer wanted to go through with it. Oh dear, what to do now? I had the cash but knew that my HMRC bill was due and this would leave me rather short. I did have a couple of properties in the states which I had bought on a buy to let basis. If I could off-load one of these quickly then that would release some capital and all would be fine again. I did manage to sell a property but it threw up a number of problems to do with the federal and state taxes, but a few visits to the American Embassy in London, hiring a good tax accountant, again, in London, and things were back on track. An agreed completion date for the end of July coincided with me being on holiday in Italy. I was able to transfer sums of money each day to the sellers via ebanking to the point where the final amount was nominal and could be made when I met up with the sellers to sign the contract of sale. Sunday, 28^th. July 2013 I was the proud over of my very own yacht, a Bavaria 38H with three cabins, two heads and a list of equipment that really wasn’t comprehensively itemised, unfortunately! That was the easy part. Checking over the list I began to decide that I needed to purchase quite a few items in readiness for my first trip out on the yacht. An anchor ball, a motoring triangle, two radar reflectors, one octahedral and one cylindrical, a throwing line for the life ring, a light for the life ring, charts for the Peleponese and Ionian areas, 150N life jackets – well these were a birthday present so I didn’t actually buy them myself, wind vane caps and a collection of other items. I wish I had waited until I had actually completed an inventory myself as I now have three anchor balls, three steaming triangles, etc, etc, etc. Oh well, there is always ebay!