Ok, sorry about the delay. Once more, with feeling:
... The important question is what did you make an offer on?
and
Yes, tell us more about this hull in the water you plan to see the world in!!!
and
Several requests for Sean to share what boat he's looking at, but I guess it's a National secret. Good Luck, TomC
Sorry about that -- until the offer was accepted by the seller and we had a signed contract, I was reluctant to post anything here (or anywhere else on the Internet) that the seller could find. It's amazing how easy it is, actually, and more than once I've used people's postings in what they thought were obscure forums to competitive advantage. Now that the contract is signed, I can be a little more forthcoming. When I typed this post the first time (before I lost it to the web gods), I wrote that I would be posting details to the blog in due time. That post got written yesterday, so you can read more about the boat here:
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-bought-boat.html...
Perhaps another alternative is a busnut host to care for Odyssey while you sail the seven seas?
I'd be thinking that the coach needs to have a committed caretaker. You will be returning to disaster without some level of maintenance as the years go by, unless you are planning to store it inoperative and pickled properly.
By inoperative, I mean batteries removed, engine pickled according to Da Book, dehumidifiers running inside...
Yes, we are open to the caretaker option and I have at least one offer. We'd also consider "renting" or "leasing" it to someone who could use it in our absence. As far as pickling is concerned, we are on the fence between doing that or just stabilizing the fuel and coming back every few months to start it up and breeze it out. The latter would make it much easier to use it, should the need arise due to, for example, a family medical crisis.
Sean, call Steve! He might have room inside for another coach and he's near the water and he knows your bus! Just a thought!
I am in touch with Steve, thanks.
If you do get a trawler, make sure it has a staysail on it ...
Louise won't set foot on the boat if it has a sail on it. Long story, some of which is referenced in this post and the ones linked within:
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2012/05/boats-boats-boats.htmlThat post also goes into some detail about our search process, for anyone interested.
... and she aint a roller! That slow roll under way could be a killer lol.
All boats roll, and ocean-going boats generally are rollier than other types. This boat has hydraulically-operated active-fin stabilizers, very similar to what you would find on a modern cruise ship, except they are not retractable. A gyroscope commands the stabizers to counteract roll; they work a lot like ailerons on an airplane.
...
And dont go for those retractable thrusters either. When those seals leak under way its amazing how much water squirts in on every wave.
I'm not sure what a retractable thruster is. This boat does have a bow thruster, but it is in a fixed tunnel. It's a single-screw boat, so maneuvering around the dock is made much simpler by having the thruster.
...
Boat people are a different breed you don't here the stories about fuel mileage lol they just fill up from 800 gals to 4000 of blue fuel and say that will run me for a few days
Ours would use 51 gals a hour @22 knots cruising along the coast with 2- 900hp V10 Man engines not for the faint of heart when you got the Wright Fuel Card bill each month
This boat is a bit more fuel-efficient than that, one of the many reasons we went with a trawler and not a planing boat. She supposedly burns about 5gph at an 8-knot cruise, and at 7 knots she should get around 2 nmpg. With 3,300 gallons of diesel tankage, that's plenty to cross any ocean. Also we can do what we do today with the bus -- arbitrage fuel prices by buying in bulk when the price is cheap. And, with tanks that big, we can take advantage of bulk pricing by calling a heating oil dealer, and having them meet us at a dock with the delivery truck.
What's "blue fuel"? I have never heard that term. Marine diesel is typically red, from the same dye as heating oil and off-road fuel. Ironically, even though marine diesel does not carry the highway tax, it is often more expensive than road fuel just due to supply, demand, and logistics. Another reason why having the fuel truck meet you is a lot cheaper.
... he will never get 30 cents on the dollar but it not going up in value in 10 years you can place money on that
Just to be clear, I do not expect the value of the bus to increase, no matter what the market does. Anyone sitting on an RV of any sort right now waiting for the market to recover to pre-2008 levels, or really any recovery at all, is fooling himself.
Instead, what I am saying is that below about 30 cents on the dollar, the bus is worth more to me as a future asset than the money I would get for it. While there is some amount of gambling involved here, it's mostly simple math. With hotel rooms running $100+ per night, plus the cost of dining out, etc., it does not take many nights of using the bus, at roughly $10-$20 per day, to offset many of the costs of storing it. I figure an average of just four weeks a year of using it would mostly pay for the storage, and then we'd have it to come back to whenever we are done with the boat.
While four weeks a year in the bus sounds like a lot, we have five aging parents between us. It is only a matter of time before we will need to spend a few weeks here or there taking care of one or more of them.
Even if we only use the bus an average of one week a year, the worst case is that it will have cost us perhaps $30,000 to keep the bus for a decade -- no way will we be able to buy another similar bus for that then.
I tried to talk Sean into a Hatteras 58LRC, but he felt it was to big for them...
When we finally got aboard a 58LRC, it was really just too big in every respect. Subjectively, it felt lots bigger than the 60-footer we nearly bought in Seattle. Also, none of them was in our price range, and that's even considering they are already 30-year-old boats.
... there is a boat factory in costa rica that will custom
build they are sold all over the world you might get a great deal buying direct from factory
I will keep that in mind if this deal falls through. But frankly, even in Costa Rica or China, having a boat similar to this one built from scratch would be probably twice or maybe three times what we are spending used. Right now, Turkey is about the cheapest place to build a boat, and when I saw the pricing I stopped looking.
If you think about it, could any of us afford to build our bus from scratch today, from the axles up, even in Costa Rica, Turkey, or anywhere? Even if you get the labor nearly free, by the time you add together even wholesale pricing on all the pieces (engine, transmission, axles, wheels, tires, steel, aluminum, miles of wiring, instruments, windows, the list goes on), you'd be talking more money than a complete used conversion.
I know a guy from CA that has a business and wants to move out of CA bad!
... So maybe.......
If you were committed to storing your bus there, and he was still interested in it maybe the two of you could work out a storage plan.
...
Thanks, Bryce, I will keep that option in mind if more conventional means do not pan out.
Whew... long post.
-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com
