It will be ready in two weeks! Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
So, we just received an email from our dealer in Sweden, BohusYachts, that the expected delivery date won’t be in December (as we previously thought) but quite a bit earlier, November 27th! It’s nice to get that nervous excited feeling again, to nervously wait for something big to happen.
(Here in between many thanks to Bernd Stock for giving me permission to use his photo in this post! Since HanseYachts apparently is quite protective of the inside of their production facilities, it is really hard to get any pictures from there. After looking for a couple of days I finally found Bernd’s picture in Google Places. It is from 2017 and the yacht being built is maybe a Dehler, not a Hanse, but feel free to use your imagination :))
What Happens Next?
When the boat is ready, a surveyor appointed by us will go through the boat, check that everything is as it should, and document anything that still needs to be corrected. Following the dealer’s recommendation, we will use a local company called Yachting Gate to perform this survey on our behalf.
If everything is ok, we are required to pay the reminding 70% of the boat’s price and assume ownership of it (since it’s financed we won’t officially be the owners, though, our bank will).
If everything is not ok, I’m not really sure how the process goes, but let’s worry about later and hope that we won’t have to!
We have to get it insured as well, and I have received offers from both Alandia and Pantaenius. Their pricing is quite similar (a bit less than 2000 eur/year depending on options), but we’re leaning towards Pantaenius since their offering and brand is slightly more appealing.
No Winter Sailing
I guess it would be possible to sail the boat to Finland right away, but unless you’re a really adventurous sailor (preferably with a boat made of steel since there might be ice), it wouldn’t be that enjoyable a trip. We’re not that adventurous.
Instead, the boat will be stored somewhere and wrapped in plastic to wait for spring. Next April it will be unwrapped, finished, painted, rigged, put into water and finally really really handed over to us.
Soon, though, we might be the family with a dream and a boat, and that is something to celebrate, right there.
It is gona be a long winter!
And my 2 advises:
– Hire a surveyor that has no link with the dealer. Search one by yourself.
– I would keep a 5% until the boat passes successfully a sea trial. That usually speed up the tune up process.
Thank you for your sound advice!
Basically, I’m very interested in finding out (and writing about) what the process delivers if done exactly as the manufacturer + dealer have specified. I think buying a new (mass produced) sailboat shouldn’t be harder than buying a new car, and if it eventually turns out to be, the process should be improved 🙂
Don’t get me wrong, though, I agree with what you say. If the results of this first survey (already ordered by me) leave big question marks then I will have to consider whether I should try to renegotiate the rest of the process. After paying the 70% I’m obviously in a much worse negotiation position, so better do it before 🙂
Kind regards,
Mikael