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    Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats
    Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats
    Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats

    By Keith Carver

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    About this ebook

    The art of buying, repairing and selling storm damaged sailboats.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMar 9, 2017
    ISBN9781483596143
    Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats

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      Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy - Keith Carver

      Post-Sandy

      In the Spring following Storm Sandy my girlfriend and I packed our truck with tools, camping gear, computer equipment and a little yellow dog and drove across country to repair and sell a Hunter 33 Cherubini we bought sight unseen from a banker in New York City. That was fifteen sailboats ago. We’ve been from Buffalo, New York to New Bern, North Carolina and on down the east coast as far as Savannah, Georgia. We made a trip down the Tombigbee Inland Waterway to Mobile, Alabama with a Southern Cross 31 and then from there sailed west to Corpus Christie on a six day offshore trip in an Endeavour 38 we found and repaired at the same marina where we sold the Southern Cross. The last adventure was two years later when we traded instruction and work at a sailing school in Buffalo, New York in exchange for a Mariner 28 powered with a Japanese diesel that once was a rice paddy irrigation pump. We motored and sailed the little beast down the historical highway of the Erie Canal to New York City Harbor, taking photos as we sailed teary-eyed past the Statue of Liberty. We’ve paid off the house, seen the country and experienced the world of sailboats and the American sailboat subculture.

      I had most of the trade skills needed and developed others as the boats and repairs taught me. We began living with the insurance companies and their auctions, marinas, buyers and sellers and learned the goals and motives of the people in the world of sailboats and made it pay. Dealing with sailboats and the sail community is often more art than craft, unlike the more worldly and practical powerboat market. We found ourselves puzzled and laughing often as we pampered ridiculous people who thought they were going to sail off into the sunset to lie in a hammock, swill rum and live ‘The Dream’. Play it by ear was said often and became our mantra. We found prospect boats north of the economical do-it-yourself marinas on the lower Chesapeake where we began to repair them and that in turn was often north of where we sold them in the sailing meccas of Pamlico Sound and the mid-Atlantic coast. We let this be our excuse to travel on a sailboat, easily convincing ourselves to sail a boat north or south for ‘business’ or to ‘a better market area’. We became familiar with the eastern waterways of America from Buffalo, New York to the Carolinas then Savannah, Georgia and down the Tombigbee River to the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile. From there we traveled west along Mississippi’s casino strip and around New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River to Aransas Pass and Corpus Christi, Texas. The different sights, geography and people and we encountered became the focus of flipping sail, the money we had down pat by this time.

      We learned that we have contempt for the word ‘can’t’ and the people who use it. If you have a work ethic, are able to see absurdity and laugh and can think outside the box you can flip sail. We knew what we were after and modified the path as we learned. And we never gave up.

      We watched Storm Sandy hit the east coast with its frightening intensity. More than 50,000 damaged boats was a mind boggling number and we began looking into this weather disaster and the possibility of getting that yacht we deserved. We originally planned to have a paying vacation and see that part of the country by repairing and selling just one damaged sailboat, not the fifteen we ultimately flipped. I was born and raised on the Gulf Coast and had owned boats and grown up in the world of beaches and water. I had trade skills and the idea of living on a cruising sailboat while repairing it had the advantage of affordable living with the aura of a romantic adventure. Never mind that our kids were scandalized, called us ‘Old Hippies’ and quit talking to us, we had the dog. We started beating the bushes for information. At this stage, you cannot research too much. Call and bother people, dig on the internet, plot, connive, brainstorm, plan and then dig some more. The logistics of each possible boat buy should be meticulously researched taking into account every option and possibility. Look at the cost of boat haulers if you are considering a prospect from an auction storage yard. Whether a boat needs to be on the hard to repair will make a difference in your planning. Repairing a boat where you find it is the easiest path to follow, whether you sell it there or not. Repair materials and parts needed, time involved in repairs, marina fees and the realistic market value when finished tell what makes a prospective flip.

      You won’t need as much equipment as you are led to believe. A grinder, sander, skill-saw, jigsaw and drill will be your power tools, about thirty dollars each at Walmart or Home Depot. Add a battery charger, Shop-Vac and hand tools and you are off to a good start. Buy any specialty tools as you need them and add the cost to the project’s total expenses. Deduct these from the selling price of the boat when you sell. We added hotels, materials, marina fees and everything but food, cut-off jeans and T-shirts. The trade skills you’ll develop quickly as the tools and the boat teach you. It will happen and the acquired skills will change your life.

      You will need internet to find parts and supplies, open navigation sites such as Active Captain and Passage Weather, to locate nearby Walmart and to run ads when you list the boat for sale. Marinas will claim they provide Wifi but these rarely work well or are within range of your dock. A booster will be a necessary piece of gear. You can get a Jetpack for a hundred dollars from Walmart, the best thing since McDonald’s dollar menu for the professional sailboat flipper. We’ve had Internet access even while underway down the Intra Coastal Waterway.

      I’ll go into the ins and outs of marinas. A marina is where you will be buying, repairing and selling the sailboat, not necessarily doing all three in the same one. All are somewhat alike and yet all on a different channel. Are they quiet and without soap opera and cliques? A large live-aboard population will mean a community of largely bored people manufacturing drama to spice things up. Do they welcome do-it-yourself owners and will they allow you to stay aboard while doing your repairs? Some marinas were what we began to call ‘Noble’, meaning pretentious, expensive and frowning on working and living aboard your boat, like one exclusive marina in Solomon’s Island Maryland where the representative looked down her long patrician nose at us while telling us how their marina was ‘Green’ and pet friendly. Of course, there would be no working on your boat or living aboard like those tramp marinas next door allowed. All this imaginary status bought for only eight hundred dollars a month. Why if they were pet friendly was Joey glaring at her and growling? Because she didn’t offer him one of her gourmet dog biscuits probably. Some are practical and friendly, making an effort toward cleanliness and safety while allowing anything reasonable, like letting you use their compressor to spray paint your boat. If a marina has a popular restaurant and bar, take this into account. It may be noisy and disruptive. People may wander around with a drink in their hand thinking you want to talk to them while you’re working, like a marina on the Maryland side of the Potomac where we repaired an O’Day 37. There you could do any work you wanted (good), but the place was falling down and the restaurant’s clients looked like bit players on a Mad Max movie (bad). Some marinas are like the Jerry Springer Show, with endless soap opera and drama going on. Most have some degree of this. Think about where the marina is. Are they one of the few places with good Wifi or a Verizon tower within range of a Jetpack? Are the three legs that form the stool of American culture, McDonalds, Walmart and Home Depot nearby? Remember you’ll be there at least the time it takes to get the boat mobile and a secluded marina will become excruciatingly boring within a month. You’ll find yourself driving twenty miles for a McDonald’s coffee in the morning. Other things not as critical are hardware stores leaning toward marine supplies, Auto Zone, paint supplies, Jo Anne’s Fabrics and anything else that only a close metropolitan area can provide. You can order anything online and have it sent to the marina. This is the way to go for paint, engine parts and anything else that you can wait a few days for. Online choices will bring the price down considerably. Research the least expensive alternative that will work. One example is a Southern Cross we did later: A Westerbeke W30 diesel is based on a British Leyland

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