Buying a boat is a thrilling moment whether you’ve owned yachts before or not. Even if your ‘new’ yacht is 30 years old and should be well tried and tested, it is likely that her previous lives may have been very different from what you intend to do with her. The chances are that once you get the boat to her home mooring, there are things you’ll want to do to make her yours, as well as the jobs you discover need doing after the first few sails. Boat upgrades to suit your purposes can escalate alarmingly, as we all know, so hopefully you will have factored in a reasonable margin to your budget.
Having sold Polar Bear, our wooden 1974 Holman & Pye 34-footer, the Najad 390 we bought in the early summer of 2019 was immaculate. This was partly because she had had some meticulous owners, but also because she had been very lightly used. One Dutchman had kept her as his office in Amsterdam. So she had a full blown television aerial at the masthead and exceptional Radio 3 reception, but no lee cloths, no bunkside book shelving and still had her original cooker. How a boat managed for three decades without a single lee cloth, nor anywhere to rest spectacles, books and morning tea mugs I can’t imagine. These would be my first modifications before we started cruising.
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