All things boatlife

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Me and Johnny V is a 1986 63 foot Hatteras Motor Yacht.  Her (Ahem...advanced) age allows her to be registered as an "Antique Vessel" in her home state of Florida.  She is a galley up, four stateroom, four head layout with the owners stateroom aft.  She is a big girl, weighing in at 50 tons, has a 18 foot berth and a 5 foot draft.  With radar, chart plotters, AIS, autopilot, a pair of 650hp Detroit Diesels, Kohler generators, a 35 GPH watermaker and nearly every other amenity you can think of, she's a tough old girl, that doesn't force us to skimp on the creature comforts.

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After an extensive search, we set our sights on the older Hatteras models, and we spent quite some time searching for the right fit for us.  We knew that buying an older boat would come with additional expenses for upgrades and refitting, but for the right boat and the right price, we were willing to take those challenges on.  We were looking for "good bones" a great layout and lots of potential. 

 

We found it on YouTube.

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We initially watched a sale walk-through video on YouTube that our (now friend) Captain Butch posted.  His channel is Aqua Cultured and you can find it here.  Definitely check it out, he's got some excellent content!  We reached out to our broker who is based out of Ft Lauderdale, and he made the trek to Madeira Beach to do the initial in person walk-through while FaceTiming us.  Needless to say, we liked what we saw.  Within the next two days we found ourselves in Florida starting the buying process.

 

As newbies to purchasing a boat of this size, we relied heavily on our broker to hold our hand as we went through the walk through tour, the meet and greet with the owners, the haul out and survey process, the sea trial, obtaining insurance and even securing a slip (not an easy feat in the wake of the 2022 Florida hurricane season).  He did an amazing job.

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We care full time for John's mom at our home in Costa Rica, and it just wasn't feasible for us to keep the boat in Florida.  We looked into transport options, but ultimately decided that cruising her down to Costa Rica under her own power was an opportunity for us to learn the ins and outs of our boat while experiencing the boating adventure of a lifetime.  We set a date for push off for the first week of April. 

 

It was February.  

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The next 60 days were a blur of activity.  We hired a training captain and a crew, upgraded most of the electronics onboard, purchased a ton of spare parts, changed out the appliances, made three trips back and forth to Costa Rica, did our shakedown cruise, hosted an impromptu wedding, meal prepped and cooked enough food for five people to eat three meals a day for five weeks and did very little sleeping.

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We pushed off on April 4th. The first leg of our journey took us to Key West.  It was an awful cruise and by April 5, I was ready to sell the boat. 

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Check our blog for more details about the cruise, and be sure to drop a comment to say hi!