Sea Trial or Not?

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Golfman25

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So went to look at a boat the other day. All looked good and I made the guy a full price offer. Now up north here, we are still iced in until April. So boat was inside and located to be one of the first out the door in the spring. The guy balked at a sea trial as it would take until April.

What say you -- sea trial or not?
 
What kind of boat, IO, outboard or inboard?
 
Unless I was familiar with the boat and/or owner, I'd keep looking if a sea trial was not part of the process.
 
Could be a half hearted attempt to sell. If the boat is first out, that is a sign it was last in and he still enjoys it? Hopefully it was properly winterized. If you bought it without a sea trial you absorb the risk of a badly performed winterization.
 
boatbum said:
Could be a half hearted attempt to sell. If the boat is first out, that is a sign it was last in and he still enjoys it? Hopefully it was properly winterized. If you bought it without a sea trial you absorb the risk of a badly performed winterization.
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None of it makes any sense, but he’s apparently moving up.
 
Sea trial is obviously best; however, I would not necessarily walk away. But two motors, drive's, air conditioner, gen(?), etc. that can't be tested under load - there is a lot that can go wrong.

A sea trial is best, but a thorough examination of the motors - compression test, leak down test, vacuum test, should indicate if there are any concerns. Perhaps in lieu of a sea trial you can negotiate down on price to have the engines examined (and re-winterized) and then a little left over to cover anything else that comes up?

Twenty some years ago I bought a boat in December. We did launch the boat and sea trial it, and ran the generator - but didn't test the air conditioners or pressure water system. Care to guess what didn't work after I launched my boat in April?
 
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When I sold a boat in January, back in 2008, I allowed the sale to be pending a sea trial "as soon as possible". I think it happened in late March, and everything went smoothly.

Now that I'm about to sell again, I've been waiting to list until Spring is closer. I may actually do a soft listing soon - in a week or two (craigslist, FB) - to start sparking interest and on the outside chance that someone wants to buy it outright w/o sea trial... I will be including all details about the service in the Fall, and probably images and history of the boat in use last year through the season (on top of the traditional listing images). But I'll probably go with a full listing in March.

Was the boat inside in heated storage? Obviously that would reduce risk. I ask because it's becoming much more common, right now both my boats are in heated storage, one in Bayfield and one in Manitowoc. I don't think I'll ever go back outside.

One idea might be to talk to the service manager / department about the history of the boat. I've found some are willing to share some basic history. Even if they don't service it they may share basic observations, i.e. If they say 'oh yeah that person was out enjoying the boat all season' then it's a good sign.

All that said, I've always insisted on a sea trial and personally would not buy without. I even had the brand new boat I bought back in 2005 sea trialed.
 
I would never buy a boat without a sea trial AND survey. My previous boat, we had an accepted offer in Jan. while the boat was on the hard with survey and sea trial to be done when boat was splashed, early May if I recall. Worked out a schedule with a surveyor to come by to do his out of the water inspections and then a couple weeks later after it went back in. Everything went well. All these details were spelled out in my initial offer.
 
You can make an offer and give deposit with contingency for survey and sea trial. Unless it's so new that everything is still under warranty.

I bought a 27' boat in fall of 2020 with sea trial and survey. Unfortunately neither the sea trial nor survey picked up a damaged gear in the outdrive requiring an expensive rebuild of the outdrive.
 
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