September 8, 2000

This past week and a half I've seen 10 boats, in San Diego, Long Beach, Marina del Rey, Oxnard, San Francisco, and Seattle.  Tomorrow I'm flying down south again to Dana Point to view a boat that I just made an offer on, sight unseen.  Of course the offer was contingent on my viewing the boat.  Hopefully, this will be the one.

September 9, 2000

Today the deal was made on a 1996 Hunter Passage 42.  The name is Dakota.  This boat is brand new!  The current owner hardly ever used it.  When I opened up the oven in the galley, the drip pan and broiler tray were still in their packing material!

The boat has radar, GPS chartplotter, all the integrated wind and speed instruments, as well as the top of the line Autohelm autopilot.  On the aft is an RIB dinghy with an 8hp Honda four stroke.

The boat has a completely canvass enclosed cockpit with windows all around.  The windows all have canvass covers.  In fact, this boat has canvass covers for everything, including the aft swim ladder steps.

So now the job is to secure the financing, do the haul-out and survey, and then take an offshore delivery.  If the boat is first delivered offshore, and then used outside the state of California for at least one 91 consecutive day period during the first 6 months following delivery, the state sales/use tax can be avoided.  That will save us over $15,000 in the purchase of the boat.  Interestingly, the State Board of Equalization, which administers the sales/use tax, even publishes a pamphlet describing how to legally avoid the tax by taking delivery out of state.  You then submit a request for an official exemption, and once approved, it's done.

We plan to take the boat down to Ensenada before the end of the month.  That will start the 91 day period.  Then we will come down and sail her regularly off the coast of Mexico during that 91 day period.

More to come, as the event unfolds...

September 29, 2000

The deal closed today.  We are in Dana Point signing the final papers.  With Dorothy and I is my good friend, Jim Jardine.  The three of us will bring the boat up the coast to the San Francisco Bay Area.

We decided not to take the boat to Mexico, as the 91 day waiting period would put us into January, the middle of the bad weather along the coast.  The insurance company won't cover a trip north between the months of November and May, based on our experience.  Well, after figuring in the cost of additional months of apartment rent, trips down to Mexico to use the boat and such, we weren't going to save anything.  The sales tax exemption, mentioned above, requires that the boat actually be used while outside of California, not just stored.  So you have to show fuel receipts, etc.

So, the three of us took the following week to bring Dakota back.  The tale of our trip can be found in the Ship's Log.