Well, if we get a new boat, which we’ve signed up to do, we’ll have to sell JollyDogs. Obviously we want to “monetize our asset”, so we need to end up with her somewhere where she’ll sell quickly and or a price that’s to our advantage. There’s at least a chance we could sell her without the help of a broker, which means that we might split the broker’s commission with the buyer. The legal paperwork that transfers ownership is actually pretty simple, though it’s best to hire an expert who does these things every day. That costs around $400, so no big deal. A selling broker is going to want 10% of the selling price, and the seller pays. Yuk. Over the years we lived on dirt we bought and sold a house without the aid of a real estate agent, and in truth the title company does all the legal stuff anyway. Real estate agents and boat brokers get that fat check to do the marketing and showing the boat. Who knows how this will all play out?
Anyway, thinking about all that leads us to “Plan D”. Currently the catamaran sailboat market is on fire at least in the US and excellent condition used boats are fetching very good prices. Plan D has a good bit to do with the Seawind 1370 production ramp up and delivery schedule. We just learned that their initial plan was to produce 6 boats in 2021, then ramp up to 12 boats per year in 2022. The customer enthusiasm for this new model has resulted in something near 40 firm orders, which motivates the factory to develop a plan to ramp up production much faster. Get them built and sold while the market is hot, certainly before the next world-wide recession. Given that Covid-19 has helped create one right now and that this sort of economic event is cyclical anyway, Seawind might rightly expect that the 1370 demand might actually increase over the next couple of years. That thought probably has their investors drooling to accelerate the 1370 production schedule to improve market penetration. Considering the challenges of acquiring additional factory space for increasing production, perhaps they’ll even have to consider deleting one of the current production models and “encouraging” any remaining customers in the order book to accept a different model boat. Altogether it’s a high-class problem, one may businesses would love to have.
Sooooooo, Plan D involves examining the used Seawind 1160 “fully equipped to go cruising now” market and making sure that within a few months of us taking delivery of our 1370 we’ve got JollyDogs positioned where she’ll sell quickly and for a good price. Where’s that you ask? Probably the west coast of the USA. So if we don’t identify a better alternative AND we’re sufficiently motivated by the financial or logistical incentives, AND the 1370 production schedule does accelerate, AND Covid-19 is gotten under control, Plan D would likely involve departing French Polynesia in 2021 and sailing towards Hawaii for a visit, then continuing along around the old clipper ship routes using the Pacific High and finally ending up somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps as far North as Alaska. We put a furnace on JollyDogs because we had dreamed of a season between Alaska and Seattle but we never got there. Could still happen. It’s all about incentives, dreams, trade-offs, and priorities.
Plan A would still be the preferred alternative, but we’ll have to figure out whether bringing JollyDogs back to the USA would create sufficient incentives, financial and otherwise, to execute Plan D. Truthfully, the passage isn’t one that really excites us. Maybe we’ll find someone who wants to begin their cruising adventure in Australia or Thailand, on a boat that’s ready to go now! Or not.
Phooey, we’ll think about that later. Time for a SUP paddle, a yoga workout, maybe a snorkeling or kite boarding session.
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