As you might deduce from the photo above, she is now ours. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her-- but she's now ours. Just kidding----we know exactly what we're going to do. We're going to have a blast. But first I need to learn how to drive her.
We flew over to Ft Myers a week or so ago and attended the pre-acceptance survey and took her out for a sea trial--about 12 miles up the Caloosahatchee River to a marina for a haul out (to check all the underwater parts and integrity). WE had to employ a Captain for this part of the survey as the seller's insurance required it. Eric, from the marina where she was being kept, a licensed captain, came on board and very skillfully took her out and put her back in a very tight docking situation. It was amazing and quite difficult to believe that I'll ever learn to do it with any where close to the skill and ease that he did. I've decided that once we get on her I'm going to hire Eric for the day and spend several hours learning the ropes. It's really quite different from driving the sailboat. All the power boaters that I talk to tell me that I'll have no problem, and that it's easier than driving a sailboat. All tight maneuvering is done with the engines with only a slight bit of steering involved and usually, the best and most responsive steering is in reverse. Should be interesting!
The survey went very well with only a very few issues found and they are all quite minor. The previous owner apparently took excellent care of her and all major systems checked out well. Part of the survey involves checking out the engines (2 240 hp diesels). They had 2100 hours on them--the most of any of the boats we looked at--but they checked out perfectly. We had all the fluids from the engines and the generator collected and sent out for analysis. This will usually identify any significant problems---they came back completely clean and clear. Both the hull and engine surveyors told us the boat was in excellent condition and that we were getting a "good boat". Now it's up to me to keep her in this condition.
Things I learned: She'll run at around 20 miles per hour, wide open (but will also burn about 20 gallons of diesel an hour at such a speed). She cruises comfortably and quietly at around 8 to 10 mph while burning around 5 gph of fuel. The generator is powerful enough to run 2 air conditioning units, all burners on the stove, the oven, the electric grill on the flybridge and all electronics at the same time---ie. plenty of power.  Overall she just seemed to be very solid and comfortable (of course we didn't hit any heavy seas in the river)
A note about the previous owners. Jim and Judy H. bought the boat, I believe, in 2007. They cruised the Great Loop (more on that later), and made at least 3 trips over to the Bahamas--The Exumas, Bimini and The Abacos and islands in between. They had very little trouble with the boat and quite clearly loved their time aboard. They are from Decatur Indiana. Jim was the owner of 2 True Value hardware stores and, I understand, an engineer by education. (This explains the excellent condition in which he kept the boat). Jim unfortunately died of prostate cancer this past April. Thus, the decision to sell the boat. How do I know all this? I found and read their blog. (Google "The Silver Foxes Blog and you should find it if you're interested) They seem like the kind of people we would have wanted to meet on our travels and feel badly for Judy. I plan to call her and introduce myself to her soon so she'll know the boat went on to some other "good people" and to express our condolences.
It looks like the boat will sit vacant until we get through the holidays and take care of some business in early January and then off to our new adventures. We are both terribly excited and anxious to get going (BTW--Diane fell in love with the boat during the sea trial--right when she took over the helm)
More on our plans for cruising later. We won't be activating our SPOT (see top of page) until we get moving in Jan) . For now, it's off to Colorado Springs for Christmas with Kristin and family. Scott is back from China and interviewing for US based jobs--San Francisco and Seattle-- and, of course will be joining us for the holidays in CS. A joyous time. Life is good!!!