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Ted Brewer (source: tedbrewer.com)

Surprise of surprises, we found out that the designer of the hopefully-soon-to-be-ours boat is available for consultations on boats he has designed! For a fee, you can contact him directly and ask questions, get advice and talk about pretty much anything relating to his designs. Since there were a few issues with the boat we are looking to purchase and were feeling a little nervous about proceeding without some expert advice, Josh took a shot and emailed him to see about setting up a consultation. He laid out what our issues are (rotted board in the transom storage locker divider—why they used wood in a locker is a mystery; damage on the hull due to improper winter storage—not enough braces for a boat of that size) and inquired exactly how to go about beginning the process. Lo and behold, Ted addressed our issues with a single email with enough information to make us feel confident in moving forward with making an offer. Major bonus? He helped us out for free. Yay for awesome boat people!
As Josh is traveling today/tomorrow, we'll discuss our magic number and submit an offer by the end of the week (which, will be contingent on estimates for repairs needed).

winner, winner chicken dinner

After a long day at the boatyards yesterday, I think we have a winner. 
We have been looking pretty carefully over 2 different boats. One was Serena, the 38 Morgan from the previous post and the other was Hopscotch, a 36' Canadian Sailcraft. Hopscotch was the very first boat we looked over during our first soujourn to the south side a few weeks ago. It was a fluke that we even got to see her. She's not even been put on the market but the lovely people at Skyway Yacht Works happened to be friends with the owner and knew he was looking to sell. Long story short, we boarded her and found she had lots of what we were looking for in a cruising boat. 
Do you know how exhausting it is to look at boats?! There are so many things to be on the look-out for. They'd all begun to blend together, so we went back a second time and saw all the boats we were definitely interested in, and took some photos. Yesterday was the third and final visit. We took our trusty checklist of things to look for while combing over both Serena and Hopscotch. Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook: A Compendium for Coastal and Offshore Sailors has been a huge help in moving forward in our plans to cruise. At the back of this book, Nigel has this monstrous checklist of things to look for when purchasing a boat. We are talking 15 pages long. Single spaced. We embarked on the checklist for both boats. I sat at the navigational station of each boat and read all the items aloud and we investigated every single one of them. Josh had come prepared with magnets, a head lamp, a pen light, and an inspection mirror. What we thought might take a few hours ended up taking six when all was said and done. Whew! Both vessels had some issues that need to be addressed but in the end, both Josh and I were leaning towards Serena. We are currently doing the math upgrades and repairs that will be needed on this hot little momma and will hopefully be making an offer on her very soon.