The Backstory: How a New House Became a Boat

The Seed of an Idea

It started about nine months ago, with a house. Jack was intent on buying a new home from an owner who had decided to sell up and sail around the world. The owner was so enthusiastic, painting such a vivid picture of simple living, freedom, and adventure, that Jack could not ignore it. He got the sailing / adventure bug, big time. Matt and I loved this story - it’s core to the 'live in the present' mantra we subscribe to - and here we are! Jack’s desire to cruise to the remote, such as Easter Island or, the pristine waters, of Micronesia - what he’ll work up to over the next few years.

With the cash for a new house burning a hole in his pocket, Jack pivoted. He started looking at new yachts, attended a couple of boat shows, and settled on the Elba 45. He found a model available from a boat show in his part of the world—the near perfect vessel. Being a presentation boat, she already had about 30 of the expensive extras incorporated. (Incidentally, the factory’s extras list is around 200 items long and can bolster the price of a 'standard' boat from AUD $1.5M to an eye-watering $3M. Ouch.)

The Wait and the Disappearing Act

Jack took charge of the yacht from the sales broker at the end of July. At this point, the factory had essentially done its job in supplying a boat that would float. The period from the beginning of August to the hard deadline of September 30th—when Matt and I were due to arrive to take the boat—was supposed to be all about fitting the few added extras Jack wanted.

These extras were crucial and costly, including: a life-raft, life rings, throw line, retrieval harness, stack-pack (mainsail cover), bimini, cockpit clears, radar, electronic charts, Starlink, a dishwasher, TVs in each cabin, a washing machine, a Code 0 sail, a tender and outboard, and a few extra sockets.

In discussing the sales process with Jack, I need to call out some sales tactics that are just plain wrong. I’ll keep this to generalities - the value of ‘things’ were translated and hyped up so that the sales guy could appear to be generous with a ‘discount’.

When Matt and I arrived, we had our 75-point checklist ready—our way of assuring ourselves that the boat was safe, legal, and capable of being delivered one-fifth of the way around the world.

It did not go well.

Within five minutes of starting the checklist, we were confronted by a nightmare. Opening the large bow locker, we found approximately a tonne and a half of water sloshing around. Yes, the boat was literally trying to get acquainted with Davey Jones’s Locker before we'd even left the dock!

As we started to work through our list, virtually every item had a problem, from the serious to the annoying. For example, our rig check found missing split pins (pretty serious) to the dishwasher door would not open when the engineer reinstalled the cupboard door (also pretty serious – come on, we are talking about me and Matt).

It wasn’t the searing 42∘C daytime temperature that was making the after-sales engineer sweat—it was our diligence in checking the yacht over. When we asked if this kind of snagging list was common, he sighed and commented that most customers usually show up, get the handover talk, check the TVs are working, and motor off into the blue.

Ah, that explains why he was desperately focused on getting the cabin TVs working when we arrived—and not the more important things like the life-rings, the life-raft, or the mainsail reefing system.

OMG—this was going to be a very, very long day...

In my next article, I’ll detail a few more specific issues.

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