I've been looking for the past six months and two weeks ago I decided I was going to quit looking, focus on selling my wakeboard boat, and do projects around the house and maybe revisit this search in the winter or a few years from now. What I DIDN'T do apparently was turn off my Craigslist search notification. Thank God I didn't, because I wouldn't have found this 99 X.
At $9,900, it was already several thousand below any other
I'd seen in the past six months of searching CL, Boat Trader and Pop Yachts. Most 99-02s are in the $13,500-$15k range on the west coast of Florida. When I saw the tandem aluminum trailer, I thought "Run!! RUN, SCOTT RUN!!!" I made the hour long trip over to check her out and saw exactly why she was priced so low. She's seen some pretty good use. Lots of dings, dents, repairs, etc. There's quite a few spots where amateur fiberglass repair was been attempted, both inside and out. It had the 40hp motor instead of the 50... it doesn't have a roller furling, no electronics, the front windows were shot and spiderwebbed, the bimini hardware has been ripped out of the hull and there are now just holes, the list goes on and on. They're all small things that are mostly cosmetic but could easily point to a boat not being taken care of properly, which I tend to run away from. I've definitely never purchased a boat (or anything for that matter) in this condition. I walked away after looking at it with some certainty that I'd never see it again and told the wife that it was in bad shape and we knew now why it was priced so low. We went to look at two others, that touted their pristine condition, in nearby towns. Both had the 50hp motors, both had the roller furlings, both had better ladders inside the cabin, both had nice lights on the mast and both had GPS systems with bottom finders. They were both very clean, shiny and, in general a lot better shape than the
I'd seen days before. But, both also had the standard steel Mac single axle trailers. Both were showing a good amount of rust and I'm terrible at making sure I thoroughly rinse off my trailers, so I knew they'd be toast within a year. Both had their bumps and bruises and holes on the interior of prior, failed mods or electronics. One needed new rigging and didn't have the cockpit cushions, the other needed a new mainsail. The divide started narrowing quickly in my head and I started wondering if I'd made a mistake discounting the first
I looked at. I called the owner, a super nice guy btw, and asked him the condition of the cushions, the sails, etc... things I hadn't bothered doing prior since I'd already written the boat off. The three sails were like new, cushions were too! He'd just put a new marine radio and antenna in, swapped out the dual batteries and installed a perko switch. It's got an inverter and shore power too! I realized that the negative differences between the three boats were mostly cosmetic and that's something I have the ability to fix myself and that the positives greatly outweighed the negatives and with a HUGE delta in price, my mind was made up.
We negotiated a price we were both slightly uncomfortable with which, to me, is always the sign of a fair deal. The more I find out about the boat, however, the more I realize what a screaming deal I got (this all said, of course, before the boat ever hits the water).
Alright, enough of the babble, let's see this baby!
). Nothing to be concerned about it just feels wrong especially if you're coming from a power boat. Its cheap piece of mind. That and see if there are other Mac owners in your area and get out on the water with them for some sailing time to get the feel of it.
and classic Mac's in the group.