Or, why the ex-owner’s wife sends me cheerful cards every Christmas
Issue 11 : Mar/Apr 2000
I called my friend Phil one afternoon to ask his opinion of a 19-foot Spacesailer I had seen at a boatyard in Spokane. I had been halfheartedly looking for a daysailer for a few months and knew Phil had once owned a similar boat. When I told him the price, he said, “Offer them half the asking. price, but be prepared when they say ‘Yes.’ ”
So began my education in the commerce of sailboats.
Phil was without a sailboat at the time, and he suggested that perhaps I would be interested in a partnership. That way, we could get twice the boat for the same money. I had shared a dog with a neighbor boy when I was young. You know the arrangement: two boys find a stray and decide to share it. One week the dog was to be at my house, next week at his. The first week at my house lasted 14 years. I figured, “Hey, a partnership in a boat might not be too bad.”
The Spacesailer deal didn’t work out, so for the next few months I had a great time. I made my own spec sheet for prospective boats. I looked at dozens of private-sale boats. I hauled myself to at least 20 brokers. One day I saw an ad in Seattle’s 48° North magazine for a 23-foot Ranger, designed by Gary Mull, for sale in the south Puget Sound area. I called the number and talked to Robert, the owner, and apparently an eager seller. On the phone, he reminded me of the singer James Taylor. I figured what the heck, he was going by the name of Robert to avoid the press. He suggested that perhaps, if it were convenient, he could send a limo to pick me up so that he could show me his boat. I had seen 300 boats by that time, which computes to 300 owners eager to sell, 150 very hungry brokers, and 279 really ugly boats.
Reasonable price
Anyway, the offer of the limo wasn’t really surprising. I didn’t accept the limo ride, but Phil and I did take a look at the boat and were quite impressed and felt the price was reasonable. Then again, there were so many boats and so few buyers, we could probably afford to continue to look. Cripes, this boat would probably be on the market for another year or so. What was the rush?
The phone rang one Sunday afternoon. It was Phil. He was sorry, and he hoped I would understand, but he really couldn’t go in on a boat at this time. I hung up, thinking the quest would have to continue on a smaller scale, when the phone rang again. It was Robert.
“Hi,” Robert said, “have you bought a boat yet?” I told him I hadn’t. There were a lot of boats out there. It was winter, and I was having too great a time looking at boats to be actually buying one. The long, dark, wet winters in Puget Sound can really get to you. Take a tip from me. Go boat hunting. You don’t even have to be in the market for a boat. Just put on your raingear and go. Brokers will kiss you just for coming in, and boatowners will treat you like the son they never had. Never give them your real name or phone number because Tim and his brother Tom from that boat place on Lake Union will call you every week for the next 20 weeks hoping you’ll buy that Olson 30 they showed you. If you really want your grass mowed, tell them you’re a doctor, or a dentist, or an attorney, or someone else who has a great deal of money.
Ten-year sale
As I see it, the average boat is probably on the market for perhaps 10 years before anyone even looks at it. The first nine years or so, the sale is only in the mind of the owner’s wife, and when she finally convinces him that the ad needs to go into the paper, it takes another year or so for the encrusted hulk to finally be sold. Be prepared to be treated like visiting royalty when dealing with a private-party sale.
“I’d like to make you an offer,” Robert said. Whoa! Here is a really motivated seller. You know the kind, the guy who would be willing to include a first-born child, Sonics tickets for a year, and an autographed picture of Ted Kennedy if you would just take this boat off his hands. Then he quoted me a figure less than half the price he originally had asked.
“Robert,” I said, “that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. I am the one who makes the ridiculous offer. You make a counter offer, and we negotiate until I feel like I am getting a good deal and you get rid of your boat without feeling like you were robbed.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t understand. I really need to sell this boat.”
OK. Do I write a check, or do I take this guy to my credit union and withdraw the cash in small bills? Then he says, “Oh yeah, if you want, I will sell you everything I have ever bought or had given to me that has anything to do with boats that I have stored in my garage for an extra $200.”
I hadn’t been this happy since I took a flyer on a Super Double Cheese Chili Burger and found out that it also came with home-cut curly fries and a large Coke. All the time this phone conversation was going on, I could hear his wife in the background yelling, “Give him a great deal . . . I don’t care if we lose money . . . tell him you’ll take monthly payments.”
Popular fellow
Now I was thinking, “I’m not only going to get a great bargain on a boat, but I’m going to be a really popular fellow with this guy’s wife.” I can see it now. He bought the boat thinking she would love it. He took it out with his friends a couple of times, and then on a really windy day he took out the missus. She didn’t like the boat heeling past five degrees, and then he yelled at her when she didn’t know her downhaul from a seat cushion. Now she won’t go sailing with him anymore. He has poured a ton of money into this obsession, and she resents it. I’ll bet I get a Christmas card from this woman every year for the next 10 years. She even offered to help me find financing if I needed it. She probably would lend me the money herself, interest free. There is nothing better than a really motivated seller unless it is a motivated seller’s wife.
Thirty minutes later I had the combination to the boat, the transferred title, and a pickup load from his garage. His wife stood there with an enormous Disney smile that said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” As I was getting into my truck, I saw her put her arm around his shoulder and say, “Honey, your psychiatrist will be very happy you did this.” When I got home and went through the boxes from his garage there was almost a thousand dollars worth of boat gear and equipment. Four years later, I’m still finding things I didn’t know I’d bought.
A couple of days after the deal, I had a rather uneasy feeling that Robert would be down at the dock on a regular basis, making sure I was taking good care of his ex-boat. So I looked around for different moorage. I found it at Deferred Maintenance Marina. That’s not really the name of the marina; that’s just what my kids called it after they had been out there a couple of times.
Emmy winner
Deferred Maintenance Marina was run by a woman who obviously didn’t like being there and resented any intrusion into her constant meditative state. Yes, she did have a slip open, she admitted, and by the way, how much water does the boat need? Now, any marina where the boats tip over when the tide goes out has got to be a little suspect, but the price was right. As it turned out, at the lowest tide of the year there were actually 3 1/2 inches of water under my keel. Better still, Robert didn’t know where his ex-boat was going to be.
This place could have been given an Emmy for neglect. The docks had been replaced a few years previously with untreated hemlock. Within minutes of installation, the nails began to rust, and the wood began to rot. I hear tell that the owner borrowed a truckload of money, went cheap on the dock fixup and ran off to Reno with the rest of the money and a dental hygienist from Humptulips. In any case, his wife divorced him, and she was now running the marina and attending law school. She must have seen what the attorneys got in the settlement and figured it was more lucrative than running a marina.
The end of the slip where I kept my boat was half submerged because the Styrofoam flotation had melted when the gas line at the fuel dock sprang a leak one evening. Come to think of it, the entire dock system appeared to be sinking. One day, when I plugged back into the shorepower, nothing worked. I walked to the end of the dock to bang on the breaker box, hoping the technique I had mastered years ago to keep my television from constantly rolling would work again.
Cool fireworks
Before I could get to the box, sparks and smoke and that unpleasant odor of burning insulation erupted from the dock halfway to my boat. The wires had been run through plastic conduit, but as the dock system began to sink, one of the junction boxes took on water, and the fireworks began. “Cool!” my son said, “And we didn’t even have to go to the reservation to buy the stuff.” The zincs on all the boats in the marina were probably toasted in that one nano-second, and the depth sounder on my boat began to work for the first time since I bought it.
As winter passed into summer and beyond, Deferred Maintenance Marina began to take on a certain charm. A patina that comes only through contact and use began to show through the years of neglect. I have spent many wonderful hours sailing out of this marina and still look forward to the time I spend there. The people who keep their boats there have helped me understand that it isn’t just a place to keep my boat, but a small community of characters.
They are eccentric and wonderfully helpful, and as I’ve come to know the sailors who keep their boats there, I’ve learned that owning a boat means having new friends who represent a large accumulation of knowledge and experience that would take years to learn from books. All that and more make me look forward to just going there, even if under the pretense of making sure that my little boat is properly tied or covered. Sure, the ramp from the dock to the store and the parking lot still looks like it could drop into the bay the first time some over-appetited boater assaults the ramparts at low tide, but I quit worrying about it when one of the other boaters said, “Hell, why worry about the ramp? If it fails while you’re on it, you’ll own the marina.”
Let’s hope I don’t survive the fall.
Frank Johnston, the proud owner of a 1972 Gary Mull-designed Ranger 23, sails the Northwest Coast. We’d tell you where Deferred Maintenance Marina is, but we fear Robert would find him.
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