In a sparsely attended ceremony (Jason and Gail) there was much celebration for the signing of an Antares 44 contract. As a good luck token, the hull number will be 4444. The boat is designed in Canada and custom-built in Argentina. The expected splash date is December 2012 but boat-building shares some similarities with house-building in predicting finish dates!
What steps did we take to get this far?
- Saved money to buy the boat. This was a multi-decade process as I am not a professional card player and Gail is not in a top 40 rock and roll band.
- Chose the boat. It is hard to take me seriously since I have not sailed a variety of catamarans around the world, but I spent a lot of time on this. There are plenty of experts and quacks on the web. Or ask the boat salesmen, they seem to have an opinion.
- Got to know the builder. You have to trust these folks. If you feel a bit weird at the early stage BAIL out. Know current and former owners. They will tell the full story.
- Set up a contract. These are not fortune 500 companies, so the contract is somewhat superseded by the trust you have for the builder.
- Decided early on options. Don’t get too bogged down. Sometimes fewer choices is better. You can add stuff after you have owned the boat for a year.
We are still deciding on whether to hire a surveyor. We are interviewing a guy at the Miami boat show. We need help in ensuring the quality control is high, but it is costly to hire someone from the states and send them to Argentina frequently.
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