Silver Dee, mark 2, Aquastar 74.

[jfm]

My brother (poster Silver Dee) today completed the purchase of this rather nice Aquastar 74. http://www.ancasta.com/WebFiles/MediaFiles/Netty_Elaine_Spec.pdf?preset=large
http://www.aquastar.gg/AquastarExplorer74
http://www.solentmotoryachts.com/boat_image/550/1/p16qvucgvee0kh9l1t27pfb1usg1-550-1-image.jpg

I inspected it with him in Palma 2 weeks ago and it passed our survey (diy; no surveyor in the traditional sense, and we did a full sea trial). He completed the purchase today. He is on board now in Palma with crew helper and they set sail in the morning for Antibes. I'll meet him in Antibes on Saturday and get some more pictures.

Brokers were Solent Motor Yachts, and Campers, sharing the transaction. Derek at SMY did most of the work; he did a great job and was very helpful and good to deal with throughout. Nice guy and strongly recommended.

She is a beautiful boat. She will have a mini refit this winter - mostly small things like nav gear, some furnishings, new tender, new dining chairs, etc. But one big thing will be STAR. She already has koopnautic fins for under way stabilisation but plan is to replace with sleipner zero speed fins, with a 25hp hydraulic bowthruster included in the system to replace the (I think) 10hp OEM weedy electric b/thruster. Old stuff will be sold on eBay I guess. Future refit work might be a HT and a hilo because the current tender arrangements are ok but certainly not this boat's strongest feature (it comes with TWO Avon jetribs: a 400 on the fly and a 320 in the garage. Double trouble; double craps-ville. A hilo would allow a nice outboard powered tender. But all of that can be fixed in due course). She will get a new name too (Golden Dee, Silver E, I dunno!)

She has Cat 3406E engines, which Latestarter will I think tell you are the best there is in the 800hp category. They are a 6 cyl half of the 3412 v12, that became the C32, which is what I have and I love them. On the sea trial with 2/3rds fuel, 5 pax, and a cool clam day, we got a solid 20knots on the GPS, which amazed me. She is more of a 12 knot D boat in practice, but it's nice to be able to wind up to 16 or 18 knots SD occasionally if you want to get a move on.

Silver Dee (and her 15m Antibes berth) are for sale, but he hasn't got around to preparing listing particulars yet so she might not appear on broker sites for a little while.

We are all round delighted, chez nous. More anon.

 

[rafiki_]

Wow, cracking looking boat. Les freres Maxey are collecting quite some fleet. Looking forward to more pics. Yes Derek is a good sort. Not bought through him, but he was very helpful when we were looking for Rafiki.

 

[simonfraser]

Cheapskate, you should have bought something a bit bigger

 

[jfm]

... collecting quite some fleet.

We haven't finished yet Rafiki

 

[Ian h]

Stunning looking boat,

 

[sarabande]

It's a modernist architectural truism that form follows function, and that is one really handsome and purposeful-looking boat. Best wishes for lots of happy and sunny sea miles to the new owner.


(And another boat prepping thread in due course )

 

[longjohnsilver]

We haven't finished yet Rafiki

What! Is there another brother lurking and awaiting the purchase of a large boat?

Seriously, that is one very nice boat, many congrats to your bother, a man of very good taste.

 

[Bouba]

Truly beautiful

 

[Nigelpickin]

Lovely, he had a smaller Aquastar previously a iirc?
Are there plans to cross oceans or will the boat stay in the med?

Many congratulations, those Maxey boys are doing ok aren't they!

 

[jfm]

Lovely, he had a smaller Aquastar previously a iirc?
Are there plans to cross oceans or will the boat stay in the med?

Many congratulations, those Maxey boys are doing ok aren't they!

His old boat was (still is!) somewhat "aquastar like" Nigel, but not actually an Aquastar. it was a one-off built by GL Watson on an arun GRP hull. She is the blue hulled boat at far right of this raft up last summer in Mallorca. Lovely boat, 52 feet, 4 cabins all ensuite, new STAR stabs, new genset, and new John Deere engines; will be great fun for a new owner soon:



Plan is just to cruise the Med for a few years, not cross oceans. He has 7 year old twins in school in UK, so his agenda is just family+friends holiday stuff and easy Med cruising. There's nothing not to like in that!

 

[Mr Googler]

What a cracking ship. Was it the pure number of scatter cushions that sealed the deal

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Fantastic stuff - that's a very handsome boat. Congrats to J. I truly hope he calls it Sillver E .

 

[benjenbav]

Nice! Congratulations.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Lovely boat jfm. Look forward to seeing her in Antibes

 

[jfm]

Lovely boat jfm. Look forward to seeing her in Antibes

Coming to a pontoon near you soon mike He has agreed terms to buy a 23x6 on quai one, opposite you, about 5 boats off your stbd bow. Great price, no availability on mole sud, and he is happy with quai 1. Happy days

 

[MapisM]

Well, there's not much I can add to the appreciation for the choice that I already expressed you in advance - a beautiful small ship indeed! :encouragement: :encouragement: :encouragement:
I'm very glad to hear that everything went well, and fair winds to J for tomorrow.
According to the current forecasts, they should enjoy great conditions during the whole passage!

Just one question (if and when you will have time to elaborate) about this point:

I inspected it with him in Palma 2 weeks ago and it passed our survey (diy; no surveyor in the traditional sense, and we did a full sea trial).

I have no doubt about your competence in dealing with all sort of technical checks, but there are a few things a good surveyor is normally equipped to handle, like osmosis checks in most critical parts of the hull, temperature checks with IR gun in all engine components while under full load, oil analysis...
Did you do all that yourself, or did you just evaluate that the boat was "obviously" sound enough, so to speak, to not waste time and money on all that?
As you can guess, I'm also in doubt about this, ATM...

 

[jfm]

Well, there's not much I can add to the appreciation for the choice that I already expressed you in advance - a beautiful small ship indeed! :encouragement: :encouragement: :encouragement:
I'm very glad to hear that everything went well, and fair winds to J for tomorrow.
According to the current forecasts, they should enjoy great conditions during the whole passage!

Just one question (if and when you will have time to elaborate) about this point:

I have no doubt about your competence in dealing with all sort of technical checks, but there are a few things a good surveyor is normally equipped to handle, like osmosis checks in most critical parts of the hull, temperature checks with IR gun in all engine components while under full load, oil analysis...
Did you do all that yourself, or did you just evaluate that the boat was "obviously" sound enough, so to speak, to not waste time and money on all that?
As you can guess, I'm also in doubt about this, ATM...

Thanks for the words of appreciation.
The surveyor thing is partly a "mindset" issue. This was a straight purchase, so no bank lender to worry about. The negotiation tactic was "I offer this, no surveyor, no price chips for small things. Here is bank statement so you can see the cash" He paid 10% deposit on a non standard contract. Contract said there is a seatrial and my bother could say "no" for any reason, otherwise "yes".

Coupled with that was a low price offer. Take it or leave it, but hopefully Mr Seller could see there was no bank and no tyre kicking happening here, which events have proven.

Then as regards survey, you have to decide whether there is anything that a surveyor can see that I and my brother cant see, AND that my brother cares about. He was perfectly happy to take the risk that there is say £50k of hidden problems. Now what can a surveyor see, costing £51k, that I cant see? (We had a seriously good look)

I personally inspected the engines, from cold start etc, and then ran them at high load for an hour. They were excellent in my view. Zero feelable blow by, no "wrong" noises, and a well know bullet proof engine (whose correct noise I know intimately as it is half a C32). I could see all the ECU logged data and it stacked up, and the nature of that boat is that you tend to take 350hp out of those engines for nearly all the time even though the bearing sizes and so on are enormous in that engine. What more is a surveyor going to tell me?

OK a surveyor would find a few little things, but the fact of promising no survey seriously increased the attractiveness of the offer to a seller who wanted the thing sold. Weigh those two things against each other, and I say there is £££ value in NOT using a surveyor, in this instance. This has nothing to do with paying a surveyor fee, which is irrelevant in this sort of transaction. It is all to do with the fact that an offer of £xxx, with bank statement to prove, promise to complete in 2 weeks, and no survey, is seriously attractive to a seller. You may have heard of a UK website called www.webuyanycar.com where you get a lowball price that week. My brother was sort of www.webuythatboat.com

That, arrogantly but very sensibly, is SD's view. He got a great price (Mapis you know the sort of figure) and has taken some risk that he can easily afford to fix, if needed. Osmosis is unlikely as this boat was built in the isophathic gelcoat era, but osmosis, if it really matters, is a £20k gelcoat strip. So what? That is a gamble worth taking to get a keen price. The boat is about to have a £100k refit anyway.

It came with tip-top VAT paid paperwork, by the way, all originals and complete

I don't suggest everyone dispenses with a surveyor, but you have to look at the attractiveness of the deal in the round and your personal ability/willingness to take some risk. I think he has done really well on this. If I typed on here the price everyone would get my point (x10) but alas I think that is a bit private.

 

[MapisM]

I don't suggest everyone dispenses with a surveyor, but you have to look at the attractiveness of the deal in the round and your personal ability/willingness to take some risk.
I think he has done really well on this.

Oh yeah, absolutely!
Thanks for your comprehensive explanation.
A very sensible approach, and perfectly understandable considering the boat/age/offer strategy. Very well done! :encouragement:

Just curious, what sort of average fuel burn did the Cat displays show?
Most boats I considered so far had mechanical engines, but in the few where I could check the total hours and the total fuel burn (as you can also with the 3406) it was amazing how different the results can be.
I've seen several C12 equipped boats where the overall average fuel burn was between 20 and 60 lph, obviously due to very different boat usage.
In a boat like the Aquastar, I'd expect the engines to have had a reasonably easy life...

 

[benjenbav]

It must be the case that James having commissioned and overseen the detailed refurb of his other boat and you having virtually designed and built your last two, and with extensive engineering knowledge and experience, that there aren't any big risks being taken of there being anything outside the envelope allowed for fault fixing.

The performance seemed noteworthy. Must be getting on for the same tonnage as Match2 and a less slinky underwater profile and, of course, smaller engines.

 

[oldgit]

The surveyor thing is partly a "mindset" issue. This was a straight purchase, so no bank lender to worry about. The negotiation tactic was "I offer this, no surveyor, Contract said there is a seatrial and my bother could say "no" for any reason, otherwise "yes".
Coupled with that was a low price offer. Take it or leave it, but hopefully Mr Seller could see there was no bank and no tyre kicking happening here,
It is all to do with the fact that an offer of £xxx, promise to complete in 2 weeks, and no survey,

An approach than can pay dividends at all levels of the boat buying market, provided you do not want the questionable comfort blanket of broker/surveyor and are prepared to take a risk.
This type of transaction is probably more prevalent among experienced boaters than many suspect.
Essentially you bid a price for the boat , less an amount to take care of perhaps one major problem,take it or leave it.
If successful means when you sell boat you can sell quickly and easily due to not having paid top dollar in the first place.
Ignore the howls of protest from sellers and obvious hurt feelings,somebody once said he would prefer to put a chainsaw to the boat than accept my offer....Fine there is always another buyer out there.
A cracking boat,nice to see one of you knows what a proper boat should look like.