The Boat Buying Experience- Because it quickly became evident that we would not be able to find a suitable boat to rent, charter or borrow for our planned 5 or 6 month voyage, we decided to buy. Not a quick and simple process, as it turned out. I had a pretty good idea of the things that we would need in a boat: Under our budget of $150,000, airy, functional and comfortable below decks with at least 6 foot 2 inch headroom throughout ( I am 6 ft tall and Laurence less), easily handled by one person, comfortable above decks, enclosed cockpit, assumable moorage in a local marina, hull mounted dingy, low hour dependable and easily serviceable engine, as new as possible within our budget. It was my job to do the legwork although Laurence did view a few possibilities with me. I looked at hundreds of boats on line and personally viewed 14 over 5 months. Most were obviously not going to work, upon viewing. I did make 2 offers on boats that might work. One fell through upon viewing (needed too much work and leaked at least a bit) and the other was not flexible enough in asking price to keep within our budget. Finally in February of 2023 I found what I thought would work for us, from a private seller in Nanaimo, on FaceBook Marketplace. I accepted his asking price of $80,000 subject to a Marine Survey and mechanical inspection after which we settled on a price of $76,800 due to some issues pointed out in the Marine Survey SeaScape is a 1995 Beneteau 351 Oceanis 36 foot fiberglass sailboat.
We bought her in March of 2023, in Nanaimo B.C. from a private seller for $76,800 (plus 12% sales tax). She came with assumable moorage (a must for us) at a low end Nanaimo marina, a 15 minute walk from the Departure Bay Ferry Terminal. In 2023 and early 2024, I spent about a week a month, in Nanaimo, familiarizing myself with her, repairing various semi-minor issues and customizing. Overall: I spent about $30,000 getting SeaScape ready for our Alaska voyage. The major expenses were about: $10,000 to build and install a custom made stainless steel radar and communications arch and raise the bimini 4 inches, $5000 for a new installed dodger, $3000 for a new electric anchor winch, $1200 for an engine tuneup and familiarization, $900 to recover the cockpit cushions. The previous owner, who lived in Nanaimo was also kind enough to take me out for a day sail to familiarize me with the sailing of SeaScape. Laurence Pi and I took our first ( and only) shakedown cruise in September of 2023. A week in the southern gulf islands in glorious sunny conditions but little wind. We left Vancouver and went as far south as Ganges Harbour on Salt Spring Island. On our 3rd day the elderly anchor winch failed just as I got the anchor up. That kept us from anchoring for the rest of this trip. Marinas only. While in the Ganges Marina we had a marine mechanic come by to diagnose. Parts would have to be ordered and that might take weeks. We decided to deal with that problem when I returned to our marina in Nanaimo. Eventually I chose to replace the winch with a new one just to be safe as the old electric winch was.......old. Other than that and running out of fuel from the main fuel tank all went relatively smoothly on our first trip. It took about 15 minutes of intermittent cranking to restart the engine. After that; a plan to replace the fuel gage. Oh yeah......another "learning issue" was; losing my wallet from the back pocket of my shorts, whilst bouncing over the waves in the dingy. Nice to have Laurence and her credit card on board. Reminder to self: always put wallet, camera etc. in a secured, preferably floating container, when out and about! I had been collecting all boat related receipts and was writing down running hours and other boat maintenance issues in my daytimer, with plans to create a proper "ships log"......... eventually. See more SeaScape photos at the bottom of this page.