Boating

This is the story, blog of my purchase of a Corvette 32 Classique 130 motorboat, the work I have had done on her so far, the people I've met in the process along with the buying process.

I looked at several boats including 2 catamarans & a sunseeker. I found it impossible from any of the brokers to get any idea of fuel consumption. I felt a catamaran would be to big for me to handle alone so the Corvette being 32 feet appealed, particularly the one i bought which had twin volvo penta diesel engines, 62 hp giving her a cruising speed of around 7 knots and hopefully low fuel consumption.

As is me, I only viewed her once and then made an offer around a week later. The offer was accepted. The purchase went through Red Ensign Falmouth brokers.

Whilst she was out of the water I had her pressure washed, anti fowled & new anodes.

The survey was done by a Paul Kerridge 07977 269284 & the anti fowling & anodes was done by a Mary Fletcher (ask anyone at Falmouth Marina for her number) - I recommend both of their services.

I made payment to Red Ensign for the balance of the boat over a few days as the bank had a 20k daily transfer limit. Eventually the boat was mine, ready to move aboard, only problem was she was still in the boat yard.

BACK IN THE WATER

Come the date she was due back into the water, the marina phoned me to let me know their crane had broken & they were doing their best to get this repaired. This eventually took a week to be done, luckily where I was staying in Newquay allowed me to stay for another week.

So first things first. The Survey. At least that was the brokers suggestion. However I wanted to go for the sea trials first. This would only cost me the cost of the fuel & if there were any problems here I wouldn't proceed with buying & thus would have saved myself the lift out fees.

The sea trials went fine, we went out from Falmouth Premiere Marina and just about touched the sea. In all we were out for around 1 hr.

I then went ahead & paid (I believe) a 5% deposit to the brokers & the boat was taken from it's berth, hoisted out & put into the boat yard. This was a cause of annoyance as the boatyard put the return to water date for two weeks away which was to long.

Red Ensign suggested a couple of boat surveyors & I made my own enquiries. Wow, do ring around, I received 3 quotes, £950, £600 & the one I went with the £350.

The survey was done & all came back positive with a few minor jobs to do. (Amazing how these minor jobs still added up to £££)

So why did I buy her? - Look at the following pictures...

Tons of deck space, excellent wide decking around the whole boat, an excellent flybridge and a 2nd sundeck below the flybridge and more deck chilling space at the front of the boat.

A large double bed in the main cabin with en-suite & 2 single beds in the forward cabin, again with en-suite. Spacious galley with the basic gas cooker and 12v / 240v fridge.

She'd been well looked after service wise although she was very mouldy upon my purchase having been left to sit in her berth for what I presume was 6 - 9 months as I understand the previous owner sadly had to go into hospital for a period of time.

She came with a funny wooden small sail boat for a tender which I promptly advertised & sold & replaced with a new aluminium dinghy with a new Torqeedo 1103c electric outboard engine.

Cleaning took a fair while, the pictures here don't really show how bad the mould was that had gotton all over the suede walls in both cabins & the various blinds around the boat.

I placed a couple of adverts for cleaners via Facebook & myself and a cleaner spent around 30 hours scrubbing, de-moulding & generally getting her habitable.

I also had the wooden rail around the boat varnished as can be seen in the pictures below and I think this made the boat look much smarter.

Below - Mould on the blinds & suede walls, the pictures don't really show how much their was...

Below - Before & after the wooden rail was varnished.

Now I owned the boat I wanted to get a few things sorted with her, first being getting the engines serviced. This was hard, ridiculously hard. Ok we were just coming out of lockdown at this point but I couldn't find anyone who would come out for at least a month. I eventually found a nice chap named Simon Caddy - 01326 372682 (I recommend him) He came out & luckily being small was able to squeeze into the tight space of the engine room.

The engines were in pretty good condition having been extensively serviced in Aug 2018 & hardly run since.

I also had no hot water, my main electric toilet wasn't flushing & my shower drain wasn't working, again trying to get an electrician to look at this stuff was hard work but I eventually found a chap named Bob Orchard, (not recommended) he came out, found out that the hot water elements were tripping when to much electric was used. He showed me how to reset them but didn't fix them, he failed to do anything useful re the non working toilet or shower drain & suggested I try a chap called Matt at Sea Fit. He charged me £67 for the half hour he spent on the boat.

I called Matt at Sea Fit (defiantly not recommended) He managed to come out some two weeks later, having changed the time of 1pm to 4.30pm which was frustrating as after two weeks of waiting for him to come he came at a time when I needed to be somewhere at 5pm.

He had a prod & a poke for 15 minutes but stated he'd have to come back when he had more time, he said he was really busy and that I should contact him in two weeks time to arrange something.

I did so & discovered whenever I called him his phone was going to voice mail...

I bumped into him (he avoided my gaze but I forced a hello on him) & mentioned the boat work. He made a vague excuse of being busy & said I should keep chasing him up.

My replacement for the old tender - 3m aluminium dinghy

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