Yes we did it! We bought the Dufour 36.
After a whole year of research, numerous boat visits, endless phone calls with brokers… we decided on the Dufour 36 Classic from Magnetic Island.
It came down to 3 choices and that last one was the best option. Not only it is located closer to us but it all felt right when stepping on it.
Good and bad are to be expected when you purchase second hand or even third hand in this case. Our choices were limited with the budget we had. But we are proud owners now of a 36 foot long sailing boat (11m).
More details of the Dufour 36 here.
A few tips we can give you while we are still going through the process of buying and getting the boat ready to be sailed up our way:
Never believe the first quote!
Issues we encountered so far:
- Antifouling cost: the initial cost was made with our online research and we believed it to be around $1600-$2000, final cost was $3067. Something we didn’t realise at time of purchase was the state of the hull. And it needed a lot of extra work to bring it back up to standard. Antifouling is recommended to be done every year and can be stretched depending on how well you maintain your hull. So trust me when I say this but I’ll be getting down there with my scuba to scrub the hell out of this baby as much as possible; we’ll be also doing the antifouling ourselves in the future, meaning that the cost would involve getting the boat dry and purchasing the products and equipments.
- Taking the boat out for survey was $350 but then something we didn’t expect we were charged for a waterblast at a cost of $250 which is necessary for the surveyor to inspect the hull properly;
- Actual survey wasn’t too bad $540, cheaper then we expected;
- Insurance, with our researches we believed it would be around $800-$1000/year and the quote came back at $2000;
- Marina berth being too expensive $230-$250/week, we decided to have our boat on a buoy on the Trinity Inlet instead. The application fee with Marine Safety Queensland $147; getting the buoy installed with 3 tonne block concrete $2250; yearly fee to stay $56/yearly (very cheap);
- Rigging was a good surprise, first quote in Cairns was $6500, actual invoice in Townsville $4400;
- Solar panels are our biggest concern, first prices found online for high quality solar panels $1500 + installation; even the broker found this too expensive. He introduced us to a professional he knows and his quote was even higher at $3000 and he explained us why. It made all sense, so we wonder if the previous price found might not have included all of what he explained. We don’t want to do a cheap job but we’ll keep looking for something better without having to blow our budget.
As we speak, she (yes… she is a she) is getting the rigging done and the additional work will wait when she is up in Cairns.
So driving back to Cairns now and can’t wait to see her up here closer to us.
Schedule sailing up beginning October 2019.
More to come soon!
Journey to Freedom Sailing 