A look at the dark side of online boat buying
Issue 53 : Mar/Apr 2007
Four years ago, my wife and I made a rash decision and bought a boat sight-unseen on eBay. Somehow it all worked out. Salina, our 1975 O’Day 22 was the perfect first boat for us. We continue to sail her today. While we still love our little boat, we’re always on the lookout for something bigger, a boat that needs a little love but is structurally sound and will not require major work to get her sailing.
Not long ago my wife spotted a 28-footer listed on eBay. The price was low, but not so low that she seemed too good to be true. According to the seller, she needed new cushions, a very good cleaning, and some small detail work. The diesel was a one-cylinder Volvo that ran well, she had a new mainsail, and the seller said she was in good shape. He replied to another bidder’s question that yes, the boat was ready to sail. The listing stated she’d never sunk and had no hurricane damage. The one big issue was that the boat was in Florida and we live in New York. After careful consideration, we decided that if she was in decent shape, this boat, at the price we were willing to pay, was worth the time and money to get her back to New York.
Lucky winners?
That night we placed our bid, knowing the auction ended the following morning. As you can guess, we won the boat. I forwarded my deposit and contacted the seller to discuss plans for my trip to Florida. The seller reassured me that the boat was as advertised so I spent three days working at an exhausting pace to prepare for my trip south. I bought charts and gathered lines and other random items from Salina, as our plan was to move our new boat across Florida via the Okeechobee Waterway and then decide where to leave her for the remainder of the winter.
In the back of my mind, I knew we were doing everything wrong: no survey, believing what was evident in photos, and trusting the seller. But we’d been lucky with our first boat, and I’m afraid we’re a little too trusting in general.
After three days, I was off to Tampa and our new boat. With certified check in hand, the excitement was almost too much to bear as I drove my rental car on the bridge over the blue waters of Tampa Bay toward St. Petersburg. All I could think of was that I would soon be sailing over warm and clear waters in a boat that would be ours for years to come. As I approached the seller’s location, I gave him a quick call to let him know I was almost there.
Upon arrival, I was greeted by the owner with a firm handshake and led to the boat. As we approached the boat, everything looked fine … for about five seconds. But from the moment I was within 15 feet of her, everything seemed to go wrong. Two very frazzled-looking faces popped out of the cabin. It seemed as if they had been working at a furious pace to correct some forgotten problem.
I noticed batteries being removed, a bilge pump being carted off the boat, and heard a comment from one of the men that didn’t do much to reassure me. He muttered that the water he’d pumped out of the boat wasn’t salty. He’d tasted it. The two men slipped off the boat. I stood bewildered on the dock, staring at a boat that was a dirty mess. The seller stepped aboard. I asked suspiciously if there were any soft spots on the deck. “No, I checked and didn’t find any,” he replied.
I stepped across the lifelines onto the foredeck and felt the deck depress a quarter-inch under my foot. The next step was worse.
Hissing sound
A sense of rage started to boil up inside me. He had lied while looking me in the eye. With the next step I heard a loud hissing sound coming from the starboard side. There was a 6-inch by 12-inch piece of rubber glued and drilled to the deck, covering a hole of some sort. When you walked on the deck it hissed as air escaped through this crude deck repair. The foredeck was basically a large bellows.
“This is all rotted. There is no core left in the foredeck,” I stated. The captain responded with, “Let’s take a look below.” As I started below, I noticed a grouping of eight holes drilled into the deck on the port side. Someone had apparently started a repair and never bothered to fill the holes after giving up. My mind already made up, I went below.
The interior was a nightmare. Some stretches of the teak interior looked good. Those were the areas in the pictures. But any wood close to the ports, hatches, or foredeck was brittle to the touch and could have been destroyed with a few well-placed finger pokes.
I asked the seller to leave me alone with the boat for 15 minutes so I could look her over. Under the settee berth I discovered built-in storage areas filled with gallons of water, very salty water. I tasted it. Had she sunk or just filled with water at low tide while lying on her side? Removing the floorboards exposed a bilge filled with diesel fuel, oil, and water that I didn’t bother tasting. The cockpit looked acceptable until I gave the wheel a little shake. The rudder banged below, and the top of the rudder shaft, visible in the cockpit, jumped up and down and shook back and forth in a 2-inch radius.
Retrieving deposit
This was the boat that needed “new cushions and a little detail work?”
Getting my $1,000 deposit back was now my sole concern. (The fate of that deposit was still uncertain as this went to press.) Grabbing my camera and video camera, I began taping and snapping photos of the boat. Next stop was the seller’s office. I made it very clear that the boat was not what was advertised and that I did not want it. The argument that followed was ludicrous. The owner explained to me that deck problems are not a structural defect. I countered that I could easily stomp a hole through the deck with my foot. What would a wave or even rough weather do to a boat with no structural support on the foredeck? After about two minutes of this, I left feeling stupid for getting myself into such a situation and swearing never to let it happen again.
In the end, it’s become very clear that there’s good reason to follow all those recommendations about hiring a surveyor and not buying a boat without doing your homework first. While we were very lucky with our first eBay purchase, our luck has clearly been exhausted when it comes to buying boats the wrong way. If you’ve been lucky with an online boat purchase, congratulations. If you’re feeling lucky and getting ready to bid for what seems to be the perfect boat online, remember that spongy decks, rotten wood, and sleazy sellers don’t usually show up in the photos. But they are painfully obvious when you meet them in person.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
