Sail Life - Should we buy this hurricane damaged catamaran?

Sail Life – Should We Buy This Hurricane-Damaged Catamaran?

Hi guys, what you’re about to see was shot about a month and a half ago. Stay tuned for the very end for an update. Hi guys, welcome back aboard Good Old Athena here in the beautiful British Virgin Islands. We’ve gotten wind of a potentially very, very interesting boat refit project up in Florida. It is a hurricane-damage boat, it is an unfinished project, and it’s been up on blocks for a while. The combination of all those words might sound a little bit scary, but this could represent our opportunity to get into a boat that we would otherwise never be able to afford. This is an Anares 44 Catamaran. If you’re new here, we’re Aa and Mess, I spent 7 years on somewhat extensive refit of our 1987 Trident Warrior sailboat named Athena. It was an oh glorious sanding extravaganza. We left Denmark and started cruising full time, sailing down Europe’s west coast, and then we had our biggest adventure yet – crossing the Atlantic. Now we’re sanding and sailing our way around the world. I haven’t seen the boat in real life yet, so I don’t know. But I feel like this could be such a good opportunity that I’ve booked a flight from the BVI to Florida just to go check it out. Let’s Get Underway The airport on Beef Island is only a 2-minute walk from The Thingy Dog. It’s not the biggest airport in terms of size, but what they lack in size, they make up for with blazing fast free Wi-Fi. A Pink Ride For reasons unknown, I again chose to sit right next to a spinning decapitator. This time with slightly higher RPM. I wave goodbye to the beautiful blue water and started the journey North. A Mystery Yard in Florida I’m parked outside of the mystery yard where the boat is located. But I’m not going to share the name of the yard because I’m not sure the current owner of the boat is super interested in having a bunch of people show up. The Current Owner, Brian His name is Brian, and if you watch YouTube videos, you might be familiar with his channel. It’s called Sailing Brian. He features the refit of this very boat we’re about to look at. I’ll include a link for his channel down in the description. I’ll give you the cliffnotes version of what has happened to this boat so far. Moisture Checks and Inside the Boat Brian bought the Catamaran in the Bahamas after it was partially sunk by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Most of the damage was sustained when another catamaran apparently landed on top of the Anares, opening up a big giant hole in the starboard side and crushing part of the cabin top. K came along and complicated and delayed the project a bit. But after patching up some of the damage, Brian was able to get the boat towed to Florida where he then started working on it. The Decision to Make an Offer So far from what I’ve seen on YouTube, Brian has fixed the damage to the cabin top and repaired the big gaping hole in the side of the hull. He’s also completely rebuilt both of the engines, just to name a few projects. This is a giant boat project, and sometimes life takes unexpected twists and turns, and I think that’s exactly what happened to Brian, why he isn’t able to finish this boat. But on a positive note, The Next Step But yeah so far I don’t think there are any big issues with the hulls. Let’s head up inside of the boat and see what we can see in there and see if we can figure out why the moisture readings were high on the Ks. The Update Before I forget, I should mention that yes, the hulls are of core construction, but only above the waterline. Below, like for instance, the Ks are solid glass. The Future of the Catamaran Project So we’re going to reach out to Brian and put in an offer. We just don’t exactly know the value of that offer yet, but yeah, are you excited? I am excited. Final Thoughts In the next video, we will keep you guys posted. But it’s probably going to take some time, paperwork, and negotiation. So don’t expect to hear anything soon, but we’ll look into it, and we will let you know as soon as we know. Closing Thoughts – One Month Later Before we ended this video, we just wanted to give you guys a quick update about what’s going on with the boat because it has been about a month and a half from the footage that you guys just seen. Yes, we were really hoping that by the end of this video, we could have a big reveal and say that the project boat is now ours. But it’s not yet. We have agreed on a price with Brian, The Road Ahead but there’s a bit of paperwork holding us up. There’s an issue with the registration on the boat, and for the last month or so, we’ve been trying to clear that out. But it’s dragging out a little bit. But I definitely think we’re on the right track. But it could just easily take about another month or two. Conclusion – A Bright Future Ahead The big upside for us is tidying out the boat. We’ll get to get into all the little nooks and crannies I couldn’t see the first time I went to see the boat, and that should give us a better idea of what we’re getting into here. So we hope to see all of you guys next week here. Well, not back aboard Athena but back aboard the Catamaran for a bit of tidying up and digging deeper into that project. End of Episode – What’s Next? So we’ll be back with another video next week, where we continue our journey. As always, feel free to leave a comment down below. And don’t forget – if you’ve enjoyed this video, please remember to leave a like. See you!