Problems on survey and acceptance day of vessel with The Moorings

[Piscis]

Good morning,

i would need some advice from you guys on how to proceed...

Signed a purchase contract in March on a 2017 Leopard 40 on the Seychelles. End of charter was August, phase out from September on. Because of ongoing works and some delays (reason not known to me), survey was finished only yesterday! Day of acceptance of vessel has been delayed to Friday 28th October. That is tomorrow....

I received finished survey report incl. seatrail yesterday, October 26.

The vessel should have installed an Axiom 9 chart plotter according sales agreement. There was no plotter installed at all.

Because of the missing plotter, the surveyor said the funcionality of most gauges could not be checked and, the functionality of the autopilot could not be checked...

It was said that all phase out works and repairs have been finished last friday...

I do not understand how they can offer a vessel for a survey/seatrail without the chart plotter, needed to check some of the installed equipment. Well, cannot change that now.

But how would you guys proceed now? Accept the vessel and hoping they will install a functional chart plotter and hoping all system will be working that could not been checked?

Try to extend "Day of acceptance of vessel" to give Surveyor the chance to do another check of the missing equipment?

I am a little bit confused on how to proceed now.

I mentioned all the findings to the broker, waiting to get repsonse ...

Thanks!

John

[Sos]

I would wait for the brokers response before going any further.
I assume you have to agree when the "Day of acceptance of vessel" is, so it is in the brokers interest to get back to you quickly.

[Sailer_Med]

To me this is no-brainer stuff. If the Axiom is in the deal, then just tell them, no Axiom no buy. It's a simple direct thing that is hard to have a disagreement over; it is there and working or it isn't.

If you accept now you need to be okay with accepting in the state that the boat is in (no Axiom, whatever else that isn't working). Exactly what leverage do you have to then get the work completed once money has changed hands?

If the Axiom is really important to you, you know what to do.

[Piscis]

Thank you guys!

Hard to find a similar vessel at the moment. Especially for the agreed sales price... If i not accept the vessel and would jump out of the deal, i might not get a boat for the comming time.

Aditionally, i have purchased quite a LOT of equipment that is already in storage on the Seychelles like: Dinghy, 4 stroke Outboard, Watermaker, SCUBA compressor, Raymarine Radar and so on. 25K US$ sitting there, waiting for me to take it to the vessel...

Would it be possible to add a condition to the acceptance of the vessel? Like saying: Vessel accepted as is, provided functional Raymarine Axiom 9 chart plotter will be installed and auto pilot fully functional until closing date? Which is November 7th...

Thanks!

[Piscis]

BTW, this is the comment from my Surveyor regarding Axiom and Auto pilot:

In regard to the autopilot, yes it will be a must that it is check for functionality when they have complet the installation of the chart plotter.

[Sailer_Med]

Originally Posted by Piscis

Thank you guys!

Hard to find a similar vessel at the moment. Especially for the agreed sales price... If i not accept the vessel and would jump out of the deal, i might not get a boat for the comming time.

Aditionally, i have purchased quite a LOT of equipment that is already in storage on the Seychelles like: Dinghy, 4 stroke Outboard, Watermaker, SCUBA compressor, Raymarine Radar and so on. 25K US$ sitting there, waiting for me to take it to the vessel...

Would it be possible to add a condition to the acceptance of the vessel? Like saying: Vessel accepted as is, provided functional Raymarine Axiom 9 chart plotter will be installed and auto pilot fully functional until closing date? Which is November 7th...

Thanks!

I dunno mate. The Nov 7th completion sounds a little hopeful based on past performance. To me it sounds like you are already all in based on the above quoted.

It might be worth a conversation. Is the Axiom already purchased or does it still need to be ordered? That will help guide your timeline. You have a radar sitting there, who doing that install?

But also it is in Seychelles? How many choices do you really have...

[Piscis]

Well, until yesterday, i had no idea that there is a problem with the chart plotter at all, until my surveyor finished the seatrail/survey and mentioned: "no chart plotter installed, no autopilot functionality check possible, gauges not working".

I did see acctual photos from two weeks ago seeing the plotter not installed. However, i expected this would be temporarily because they have to fix some stuff at the helm.

I still did not get any response from the broker or the base because of the surveyors findings...

Time is running out a bit, because of acceptance date. LOL

I am planning to install the Radar by myself. However, Plan B is available there, a local Raymarine service station.

You are right, not many options.

Thanks!

John

[Sailor Sailor]

Originally Posted by Piscis

Good morning,

i would need some advice from you guys on how to proceed...

Signed a purchase contract in March on a 2017 Leopard 40 on the Seychelles...
But how would you guys proceed now? Accept the vessel and hoping they will install a functional chart plotter and hoping all system will be working that could not been checked?

John

I am sorry to read about your difficulties.

This is a legal question, probably determined by the law of the Seychelles, unless the contract specifies a different governing law. As far as I know, none on this listserv are licensed to practice law in the Republic of the Seychelles. So none can actually answer your question here.

This involves the same general legal issue that was raised by the delivery captain who refused a delivery for lack of fuel: under what circumstances is performance due under a contract, if things are not exactly what was agreed upon. Generally, under Anglo-American law, a party is required to perform a contract, unless and until there has been a material breach of the contract by the other party, or performance has been rendered impossible. The question then becomes what is material to the contract? What is the essence of the bargain? If there is a breach, but not a material breach, the party can sue for damages, but is still required to perform under the contract. Under a contract for the purchase of the boat, performance by the seller would be delivery of the boat and title, performance by the buyer would be paying the purchase price and taking possession.

Generally, under Anglo-American law, a party is required to mitigate or lessen his damages. As a practical matter, a handheld GPS unit can be purchased for several hundred dollars. In your circumstances, it would seem that the survey could have been satisfactorily completed and most of the critical instruments checked with a handheld GPS unit, for all practical purposes.

The other thing your question illustrates is the folly of making all instruments depend on the functionality of one unit.

I am not licensed in the Seychelles, so I do not know the answer to your question and I am not giving you legal advice. Consult with a lawyer in the Seychelles or whatever jurisdiction provides the governing law for your contract, and determine what your rights are.

[S/V Illusion]

Take possession but put a significant portion of the purchase price in escrow pending delivery of missing equipment. The broker should have an escrow account for this very purpose

[SailFastTri]

Earlier this year I bought a 2017 L40 out of charter from the Moorings in St. Lucia. We had to do several closing extensions because the phase out wasn't completed on schedule. Your broker can do this - it's a one page Docusign titled "ADDENDUM "X" EXTENSION TO CONTRACT DATED (Date).

The St Lucia base was good about taking care of issues we found shortly after after closing, but I do agree it would be prudent for you to have them supply and install a working system before you close.
You're all in, and would lose more than the cost of a chartplotter if you backed out. The Moorings will make good on it, but talk to them about how to keep this fair. You will almost certainly find other issues when you take ownership. I advise you to keep things friendly and talk to the Base Manager too. The Base Manager makes it happen.

[SailFastTri]

The thing to keep in mind about these island charter bases is that to quickly fix a boat to go out for charter they are constantly swapping parts from one boat to another when something breaks. They swap out then order replacements, and they stock some common parts, but it might take a long time to get parts in remote islands. Then they might forget if a boat needs the parts until they phase out. The surveyor might miss little items like missing pot retainers for the stove, or a door latch/slide that doesn't work properly, or a valve that doesn't turn easily, or (in my case) inoperable fuel transfer pump. Any used boat you buy can have such issues, but charter boats probably have more of them.
PM me if you wish, and I'd be happy to share some of my recent experiences and tips.

[goboatingnow]

Surely some simple correspondence with the seller will resolve this.

[Afrinus]

An Axiom is a fraction of the price of the boat.
What does the rest of the survey look like? (By the way, getting a survey report same day as the survey is really suspect to me - I'm a surveyor)
Accept the vessel if you're ok with the caveat that $x.xx is held back in escrow to address the survey findings.

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Surely some simple correspondence with the seller will resolve this.

Exactly! The Moorings isn’t going to cheat you out of a chart plotter or working instruments. They’re too big for that type of behavior.

[Piscis]

Thanks a lot!

I talked today with the Moorings sales broker and all seems good. He promised the surveyors findings will be taken care of according the surveyors recommendations. We agreed on an addendum of the purchase contract in which all the findings are mentioned and the agreed repair procedure.

The surveyor has been at the vessel multiple times. On the hard and in the water. First inspection was first week of September. Last date of survey was last Friday. Seatrail last Monday. That explains the date the survey was written down and given to me...

I received about 200 high resolution photos from the vessel with the survey. Some small issues... most of the vessel seems to be in very good conditions, compared of what i have seen in the past 20 years of chartering boats of that age (and younger).

A missing chartplotter would not be a reason for me to jump out of the deal... However, its just not right to accept it.

Well, all looks good now and all findings seems to be taken care of.

Thanks again for your advice and knowledge.

John