When is a Boat Not a Boat? Lessons Learned

Footsore and weary, we have returned from the boat show, laden with notebooks full of pamphlets, brochures and business cards for cool things we want on our boat.  We met tons of great people with great ideas and everyone was very enthusiastic about our project...once we explained it in the right way.  At the start of the show, we began our conversations with, "We are building a boat; it's a kit boat from Australia...being built in a yard" only to be met with smirks, giggles, raised eyebrows, "Oh, really?", and"Hmmm".  Clearly, our explanation lacked credulity.  After the fourth or fifth time that this happened, we grabbed our builders, Rian and Lari, and made them come with us.  Then we introduced our scheme this way: "We are having a custom sail cat built in a yard in Sarasota, and these are our builders..."  It is truly amazing how much more respect and interest this lead in commandeered for us!  The first introduction made us sound like we were constructing a large Lego set in the back of the house, while the second implied a serious venture, well thought out and funded.  First Lesson Learned.

One of the conundrums we had hoped to solve while visiting vendor booths was the issue of insurance. Of course, I knew we needed insurance on our boat, and our project, very much like a home, I assumed.  So I confidently approached the first marine insurance vendor's booth.  Using my refined explanation of what we are doing (see above) so as to be taken seriously, I approached the veteran insurance salesman who looked bored.  I figured he would be able to educate me a bit.  I asked about insurance costs. " No problem, what kind of vessel is it?" he asked.  " Well, it will be a Fusion 40 Sail Cat, but right now it's in two shipping containers, coming from Australia," I replied.  This response brought double frowns.  First, the Fusion 40 is not a well known manufacturer like, for instance, Sea Ray or Lagoon, so we'd given him no frame of reference.  Next , if it was in two shipping containers, it clearly wasn't a boat!  He kindly shook his head and replied, "No, come back when it floats.  Then we can sell you a policy."  I walked away, deep in thought.

The salesman's answer seemed to make some sense, but I felt it could not be the entire answer.  There was the time the containers would spend en route to the yard in Sarasota to consider, and also the two plus years it would spend being constructed at the yard.  Kim, the yard owner had already told me that their insurance would not cover the boat itself, and that we needed a separate policy. 

After several more inquiries, and many more frowns, the Progressive insurance salesman was finally able to explain the answer:  we needed a Builder's Risk insurance policy!  This would start out covering the initial investment in the kit, and would increase in value over time, as the kit slowly became a vessel.  Then, when it was launched, and under its own power, we could have it surveyed, and valued, and then purchase a regular marine insurance policy.  Finally, this made sense!  The salesman explained that his company does not write this insurance, but he took my contact information, and promised to have an associate contact me, and sure enough, two hours later, I had an application in my email.  So, Second Lesson Learned.  Thanks, Flo!



In discussing this information, and reviewing the insurance application, however, we hit another snag: how would we know what the boat was worth at any given time, in order to make the adjustments in the policy?  And this question tied in with another murky area: boat registration.  Every vessel is registered in a "home port", and then as it travels to other waters, needs to obtain cruising permits to stay for a specified length of time.  We had already contacted the Department of Motor Vehicles, which handles vessel registration in Florida, and discussed our plans with a very enthusiastic government worker.  But, he reiterated, just like the insurance vendor, that until our boat was a BOAT, it could not be registered.  And oh, by the way, at that time you will need to pay sales tax on the boat.  His definition of a boat was the same: it needed to be able to be launched and operate under it's own power.

OK, that's cool. But wait...Sales Tax???  Sure, when you buy a car, or other products, you pay sales tax.  But this sounded like double dipping: if we paid sales tax on most of components as the boat was built, why did we then have to pay sales tax again on the value of the finished product?  We next called the State Tax Department, where we talked with another (very enthusiastic) government worker who explained that we needed to keep very careful track of the cost of what was used to build the boat, along with any tax paid on those purchases.  Then, when the time came to declare  XYZZY a real boat, we would be able to complete a form, back it up with documentation, and only pay the difference.  In addition, in July of 2010, a law was passed that the maimum amount of tax on a boat (in Florida) was $18,000.00.  Wow!  They have either spent a lot of effort to train these state workers in people skills, or the folks that work for the State of Florida are just much nicer people than those who work in health care insurance-the folks I get to argue with every day in our business!  But they were very helpful, and we felt the puzzle was finally coming together.  Lesson Three Learned.

On the last day of the boat show, we revisited several booths, feeling confident that we had the answers to our questions.  Stopping by a booth that advertised Vessel Registration, we thought we'd just get a bit more clarification on all that we'd learned.  But no, the folks here had more wisdom to impart.  Turns out that you can incorporate your vessel, and that as a corporation, it is treated very differently that when it is owned by individuals.  Furthermore, Alice explained, you could incorporate outside of the US, like in the British Virgin Islands, or the Cayman Islands, and avoid the entire discussion of sales tax.  But, I wondered, what happens when we want to sail in US waters?  Simple, Alice explained, you purchased a cruising permit, and then you are allowed to stay in the US for a year, at which time, you had to leave, clear a foreign port, such as the Bahamas, and then return.  How bad could that be, we wondered?  Not really a hardship to have to spend time in the Bahamas once a year!  This sounded really interesting, and so we have more topics to research.  Lesson Four Learned: you're never done learning!

As we meet people, and put forth our questions and ideas, we are constantly surprised at how much we learn.  We wanted to include this information for our blog-readers, because it took a lot of effort to put this information all together, and we hope the next folks who decide to go down this road won't have to struggle quite so much.  It reminds me of when our daughter Jenn was trying to make the transition between local ballet lessons and pursuing a professional career in dance.  Every step, every turn was a myriad of unanswered questions, and many times it was like pulling teeth to get answers on what to do next.  It also reminds me of when we were new parents, with our first baby, and every situation, every discovery, every decision was uncharted territory.  Why, I remember wondering, didn't people warn you about these things?  Why weren't there required pre-childbirth counseling sessions by parents who had been there, done that, instead of baby showers with goofy games or Lamaze lessons on breathing? Turns out the birth process was the easy part! I suspected it was a conspiracy, because if the truth were really told, there might not be too many babies born at all!

But, like most difficult paths in life, both of those adventures were well worth the struggle, and I'm sure this one will be as well.  Where's the fun in doing something ordinary, living a cookie cutter life, of not taking "the road less travelled"?  Fifth Lesson Learned.

Am I a real boy?
              No, Pinocchio.
              To make Geppetto's wish come true will be entirely up to you.
              Up to me?
              Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish,
              and someday you will be a real boy.

                                                                        -Pinocchio

PS-I did promise that I would post the most exciting thing we found at the show that has made it to our "Gotta Have It" list.  So, here it is, an electric, foldable bicycle! It is electric-assisted, so the motor engages when you start pedaling, and when you stop, you go into coast mode, and the motor disengages.  It folds up small and the battery recharges in 2-3 hours.  Just perfect for exploring!  Dennis would not let me take his picture, although he did a tour of the Convention Center!

What We Can't live Without

Here we are in October already; time is really moving quickly!  At the end of this month will be the overwhelmingly large Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, where we will find lots of inspiration for outfitting our boat, XYZZY.  For those of you who are not familiar with the boat show schedule, the major player on the East Coast is usually the Annapolis Boat Show.  This show is SO large that it is actually held over two long weekends.  The Sail portion is centered around Columbus Day weekend, while the Power boats show off the weekend following that.   We have yet to attend this show, because it always conflicts, date-wise, with something.  (You know how, in the scheme of life, there are always certain dates which scheduled events always pile up around?  You can go weeks with nothing planned, and then all of a sudden there are five places you'd like to be, all on the same day!  Well, that's Columbus Day weekend for us, most years.) 

The next major boat show after Annapolis is at the end of October, in Fort Lauderdale, and while it does not split itself between sailboats and powerboats, it does attract a large number of vendors for both persuasions, with displays and booths for everything from generators to kitchen appliances. So, this will be our big chance to go "window shopping", and compare choices on all sorts of items our boat will require. 

When we planned this 5-day marathon last month, Lari advised us start our "List of What We Cannot Live Without".  You see, living aboard a boat, whether permanently or just for long cruising periods, is a delicate balance of comfort & convenience vs. weight and performance.  In other words, one can travel light and lean, living in survival mode, and improve the boat's speed and performance, or one can load up on all the conveniences of life, and weigh the boat down so much that it cannot get out of its own way!  Of course, a boat does not have the same amount of living space to start with, that most of us do, with a house, yard, and garage. (Kris & Leah, in their Manhattan apartment, might come close, though!)  While catamarans do have more space and storage than traditional monohull sailboats, space is still a limiting factor.  Most cruisers settle for some compromise between survivalist and luxury; thus we need a list to help pare down what goes aboard.

There is a philosophical component to putting together such a list, which quickly became apparent as we researched and contemplated our own.  Among the sailing community there is deep division between the ends of this spectrum.  Many sailors eschew all but the bare minimum and take pride in doing without all the conveniences of modern life.  Others cannot bear to be separated from their full array of creature comforts, TVs, and electronic accoutrements.  Most people, ourselves included, go cruising to try and eliminate the clutter of life, get "back to basics" and enjoy the simple pleasures of nature, family, and traveling.  We used to go camping for the same reasons, when our kids were little. Unfortunately, a computer and Internet are staples of keeping our business running, and these days, hand pumping a toilet and sleeping in 100% humidity is somehow no longer appealing.  I'm beyond the point in life where I feel I have something to prove by suffering through it. (For those of you who knew me back when I was a snotty, rebellious teenager, yes, I have changed!)   So, compromise is again the word of the day. 

The first things on our "Must Have" list include whatever the latest technology is to maintain Internet connectivity.  We don't see ourselves not working (different than retiring!) any time soon, so this is at the top of the list.  Currently when we charter, we always bring along our cell phone extender which gets mounted to the top of the mast, and increases our cell phone (and thus Internet) range substantially.  Another category close to the top is marine electronics.  While we don't want to become the type of sailors that can't sense how to set the sails without checking the console, or tell that the water is too shallow by its color, we do appreciate the advances in technology for what it brings to safety while sailing. 

Moving on to items in the comfort category, we have a watermaker on our list, which we feel is necessary for an adequate water supply.  A watermaker will allow us to create fresh water from the frequent showers and rainfall of the tropics, and supplement what we can carry in tanks.  When we cruise, we don't usually go into severe water conservation mode, as many cruisers do.  Obviously, we don't take 30 minute showers, and I have no problem, when in the clean, clear waters of the Caribbean,  using biodegradable soap and shampoo to wash up in the ocean, and then rinsing in fresh water.  But I am NOT going to bed coated with sticky salt! 

This discussion leads right into the inclusion of a mini clothes washer/dryer on our list.  Many people we've spoken to have poo-pooed the idea of having a clothes washer and dryer aboard.  Their solution?  Take extra clothes, towels, and suits, and just do masses of laundry whenever you come to a port.  This is fine if you are cruising for 1 or 2 weeks, but not realistic if you are going for a month or more.  It starts to become a trade off of space (for dirty laundry and extra clothes) vs. the convenience/expense.  We're going for the washer/dryer!  Remember,no judging!  There's no right and wrong answer here, just compromise. 

Electric vs. manual heads (on board boats, toilets are called heads) to me is a no-brainer.  Why would I want to spend many minutes in a hot, stuffy bathroom, pumping out a toilet, when I can just press a button?  This needs very little discussion, in my mind.  We visited a friend's boat once, which had three heads.  One (his, of course) was electric.  The other two were manual.  Guess which two were clogged?  Yep, the manual ones :).  OK, I was judging just a bit there...

Moving on to recreation, work, and sentimentality, we can score points because books and photos are easily stored electronically, or better yet in "the cloud".  (Clouds take up very little room on a boat!)  And with NetFlix and Amazon, our "TV" can be combined with a computer screen, which doubles as a console for the marine electronics.  Our client files and documents are securely stored on a hosted computer somewhere on land (or in a "cloud"), which I can easily access via my iPad or SmartPhone.  So no filing cabinets or bookshelves needed on board.  I'm still trying to talk Comcast into hosting our DVR, so I can "log in" and watch my recorded TV; we're working on it.

And so it goes.  The idea of a "Must Have" or "Can't Do Without" list is really something worth considering.  It is a very cathartic experience to whittle down one's life to an acceptable minimum designed to fit comfortably into a small space.  Even if you are not actually moving onto a boat yourself, there is a lot to be gained from such a mental exercise-try it and email us what's at the very top and bottom of your lists!  We'll publish some of the best in the next post. 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.. 

 Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

- Mark Twain

The Name of A Dream

Several weeks ago we made our first trip (of many to come!) to visit Rian and Larissa ("Lari") in Sarasota.  We planned to review some of our initial design thoughts, visit the boatyard where our project would be built, and talk over the stages of work.  There we met with Kim Lindsey of Sarasota Yacht Center, who impressed us immediately as an extremely dynamic and competent operations manager.  Her yard, like many businesses on the west coast of Florida, has suffered some setbacks of late, due to the economic recession, and unrealized business deals.

But rather than dwelling on the past, she is enthusiastically planning for the future, and showed us the changes to the yard, the access road, and the entranceway they would be making to accomodate the equipment that would be needed to deliver our kit, and to eventually launch it as a finished boat, the first Fusion of many more planned to come. 

When we first considered the Fusion 40, we had trouble finding anyone that could tell us more about the concept, but we felt strongly from the beginning that the Fusion 40 was a perfect fit, not only for us, but also for the North American market.  And it is clear to us that the rest of our team, Kim with Sarasota Yacht Center, and Rian and Lari from MondoMarine, share a similar vision. 

That weekend, we talked and planned for over ten hours, touching on topics large and small, from diesel vs. electric engines to where the microwave would be located in the galley.  But in a quiet moment, while we were all mulling over the enormity of the decisions ahead, the most important question popped up: "What will the name of the boat be?"  And sheepishly, we had to admit, we had not decided! 

On the drive back home to Miami, this question became the focus of our discussion.  For years we had kept a running list, first mentally, and more recently on paper, of possible boat names.  Most related back to a song or a fond memory, but as we considered them now, they seemed trite and predictable.  Names you might see in any mooring field: Journey, Evergreen, Cool Change, Wanderlust headed the list. We did come up with Dennis (the Menace) and The Kobayashi Maru as some of the more original candidates, but nothing felt just perfect.  (Actually, we were afraid that Kobayashi Maru might mean something nasty in an Asian language that we were unaware of!)

Then suddenly, out of the contemplative silence, Dennis said, "XYZZY-that's what we should call it!" XYZZY?  What was that?  A mysterious password, my husband explained, that had first been coined in an early computer game played on the original PC.  What was the game called?  Adventure! Hmmm...I was not convinced, although it certainly was unique.  I Googled it and came up with this from UrbanDictionary.com:

The quintessential magic word, originally from the "ADVENT" text-adventure game.

The word XYZZY would teleport the player when spoken in the right location.

Wow!  This really spoke to us!  A magic word that would transport one to a special place?  Well, that is what our Fusion dream was all about!  Drawing on the beginnings of our techy backgrounds, and alluding to the inherent escapsim in our Adventure, it seemed perfect.  True, there would need to be explanations of the name (we're thinking of T-shirts and pamphlets with the definition) and the pronunciation (just say the letters, don't try to get complicated...), but it was certainly neither trite nor predicable. 

And so, our Fusion is hereby christened "XYZZY".  And the dinghy will, of course, be named "plugh" (pronounced "plew")...you are on your own to figure that one out!

Our Partners

So after our first post, most likely all of you are thinking, "What has happened to Debi & Dennis?  They've always been such level-headed people; now they've really gone off the deep end! Can you imagine trying to build a boat yourself?"  And admittedly, we did toy with the idea of tackling our Fusion 40 on our own...for a couple of months.  But we ran into tons of basic, logistical issues right away, such as where we would work on something so large, how we would find people to do the pieces we didn't have the expertise to do ourselves (most), and if we ever completed it, how would we launch it?  Fusion Cats (http://www.fusioncats.com/) has a wonderful website showing many ambitious boat builders plowing down trees to get their catamaran to the water.  While that would certainly not be our experience in Florida, land near the waterfront is pretty expensive, and we did not want a finished product that screamed "HOMEMADE!" 

That settled, we proceeded to look for a builder to help us out.  Jim Gard, of Fusion Australia, had some suggestions, and as we wandered through the Miami Boat show this past February, we tackled every vendor we could during the three days we attended.  We explained our endeavor, and asked them all if they knew of any sailboat builder they felt would be up to the task.  Trying to limit our choices to somewhere in the South Florida area, we eventually came up with a short list of four builders.

The next step was to go visit each of them, and discuss our project.  So we made contact appointments and, armed with a booklet of Fusion documentation we'd assembled, set off on a roadtrip down to the Keys, and up the west coast of Forida, to Sarasota and Tampa.  Our crtieria were fairly straightforward: we wanted a builder who'd had previous experience with this type of project, a location where the build could take place, understood catamarans and the compromises between comfort and performance that we were seeking, could accomodate a schedule that might well stretch over several years, and above all seemed responsible and honest.  A lot to ask, for sure! 

During our search, we met a number of wonderful folks, and also got to visit the only two existing Fusion 40s that are on the east cost of the US.  We connected with Don Walton on a rainy, cold day in March down in Marathon, and he spent several hours patiently showing off "Boomerang", demonstrating all of the cool, custom ideas he had built into her.  Then later in the spring, we met up with a potential builder named Rian Mondrian in Sarasota, and he showed us Jim Noland's boat, "Restless".  Along the way we also heard many horror stories of stalled projects, builders who absconded with their clients' money, yards that had gone out of business with the boats held for ransom! Many days later we returned to Miami, now convinced we wanted to have a Fusion built, but still unsure of  who are build partner would be. Clearly whoever we partnered with could greatly affect the success of our dream.

Weighing the pros and cons of the builders we'd met, we whittled our choices down to just two, and they seemed very evenly matched.  How would we choose?! The final decision would be made after we reviewed their responses to a "Request for Proposal" we sent to both companies (it works in the computer industry, so why not?).  Our proposal request was two pages of indepth questions on the companies, their philosophies, and their build procedures.  We wanted to make sure we could compare apples to apples on all of the important points.  (If anyone reading this is interested in the specific proposal, email us and we will happily send you a copy.)  We gave the two prospects a deadline of the end of May, a little over two months away. 

In the end, we chose Rian and Larissa Mondrian, of Mondomarine, in Sarasota, Florida.  They took our proposal request very seriously, and clearly put a lot of time and thought into their response.  They have been enthusiastic supporters of the project from the start and we feel very confident in our choice.  In addition to taking on our individual project, they are now in deep discussions with Fusion Australia about launching Fusions into the US market, an endeavor we look forward to spearheading with them.  Thank you, Rian and Larissa, for helping our dream come alive!

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid."

Robert N. Rose

---

The First Steps

So it is official! After years of roaming boat shows up and down the coast, dreaming of what "our" boat would be like, and chartering with our family and friends all through the Caribbean, we have decided to build our own catamaran! 

In the end, the decision, like all good outcomes, was really the only choice that made sense.  All of the boats we've chartered have always had many good points and then some bad; certain comforts that would make us exclaim, "What a great idea!", followed closely by other discoveries that  elicited a disbelieving "Really!?? Are you kidding?"  Every voyage caused us to add items to our list of what we did and didn't like on that particular boat.  Eventually we realized that no single design we'd met so far would be perfect for us, and that even refinishing a used catamaran would limit us in certain ways due to the inherent design of the craft. 

Buying a new boat was financially out of the question for us, and even had it not been, we would still have to live within the scope of a narrow design, with only limited ability to customize our dream.  It was then that we first looked at the Fusion 40 solution, and right from the beginning, it fit us perfectly.

So, on July 1st of this year, we sent in our initial deposit, which placed our order into the queue for production, and we are expecting our delivery sometime around April of 2012.  But in between now and then, we have tons of decisions to make and plans to put together.  As we plunge ahead into our Fusion Adventure, we want to chronicle the process for you: our family, friends, and other sailing enthusiasts that might consider this the solution to finding their heart's desire.  You can follow our progress, lend your help and comments, ask questions, and vicariously sail along with us on our journey. 

"It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better."
-Sir Francis Drake