Yup, I bought Sea Breeze privately from the owner.
The boat was listed for sale on Bud's site, I emailed the owner, who turned out to be a Swede, and learned the boat was in Nanny Cay Marina on Tortola, BVI. I went there with a list of five boats to look at (I seriously considered about 28) and eventually decided on this one. I looked heavenward and grit my teeth, and dealt with the owner by phone, mailed him a money order for payment, and he mailed the papers to me. I've never met him. The purchase turned out well.
I think these things: (a)Buying a boat is in itself good fun, (b)Hop on a plane and go and see the boat(s). (c)While a friend may go and look the boat over for you, make the purchase conditional on a survey, and (d)Bud Taplin is the _ONLY_ surveyor. (e)After the survey, whatever the surveyor finds that's deviant from the seller's description, its value is subtracted from the seller's purchase price, which is thereby renegotiated a bit. (f)And I think that brokers don't care what they say, and neither do I.
I looked at the five boats and went back home and thought about them. I bought Sea Breeze from there, went back to Nanny Cay, spent some months getting .her ready to go offshore, and then sailed her singlehanded across 1200 miles of the North Atlantic Ocean straight into Charleston, South Carolina. We had a great time, boat and I.
Joe Kovacs
SV Sea Breeze
