Buying a Boat Overseas is NOT Easy

sailing around the island of Milos, Greece

Disclaimer: not all deals are like this and I am sure others have had much easier and less stressful experiences when purchasing a boat in the Med. This is just our account and we hope it serves as information for those in the research phase. Buyers beware, research like crazy, and be prepared for it to take more time than if things were happening in the USA. With that in mind, you will hopefully have a less stressful experience than ours!

Going to be real with you all up front. The boat-buying process in the Med drastically differs from buying in the Caribbean! Time just does not seem to matter in the Med. There were so many delays, we lost count! We were used to 'island time' in the Caribbean, but take that and double it over here.

We had an accepted offer on the boat in late September and did not sign final paperwork until the end of December! Talk about exercising patience!  Our broker was not there, so we didn't have anyone looking over things. Then we couldn't physically get to the boat due to the travel visa suspension between the U.S. and Turkey, and finally, paperwork that was incorrect--not once but twice! We were never so happy to sign our name on those final documents! It meant we were finally moving forward!

Here are a few examples of the differences:

Boat buying from Moorings, BVI:

Buying in the Caribbean was a piece of cake. Seriously, no stress involved what-so-ever. This is mostly due to our broker being right there the entire time and following up with the seller while the phase-out was in progress. When they say the will clean, polish and fix the boat, they meant it.  In fact, several small issues that did not come up in the survey and were not apparent upon delivery of the boat, they still fixed.  These included things like missing towel hooks, broken water tank lids, and loose shelves.

Buying a boat from Moorings, Turkey:

When they say the boat is clean, they cleaned it enough that the pictures on the internet appear clean.  Under the oven were bread crusts, miscellaneous crumbs, grease, and even a fork!  Toilets were stained a disgusting shade of brown from not being cleaned, possibly ever! There were leaking hatches, leaking traveler and jib track, various chips, nicks, and shoddy gelcoat repairs, worn and weathered caulked joints, removed equipment, engines overfilled with oil that leaked nearly a quart into the bilge, worn out air conditioner pump that nearly started on fire and had to be immediately replaced, exhaust stains at the stern of the boat, leaking holding tank and stained bilge to go with it, leaking raw water strainers for the heads, and leaking generator exhaust elbow.  But according to the Turkey base, the boat was clean and in good shape! 

Buying in the Med was stress-city.  Let me specify--buying from this same company in Turkey was stress-city. We experienced a complete 180 in terms of communication and honesty. Basically, all the horror stories you read about on the internet were rolled into one and served to us on a platter--er boat. It seemed as though each day brought up some new challenge we had to solve and left us with huge migraines. 

We had chosen to buy from Moorings based upon our previous experience. Sure, we were a bit hesitant to buy a boat sight-unseen and so far away. However, we felt we would be taken care of, and so we put our full trust once again into their hands. To give them some credit, they did agree to change the delivery location to Greece for us and paid for the dockage so we could move aboard. They also (after many emails and us sticking to what was on the inventory listing) agreed to reinstall the electric winch that had been removed from the boat. They paid for the shipping and re-installation costs, as well as our dockage during that period. 

In the end, we appreciate all of the extra work all parties involved had to go through. It was a mess, but eventually worked itself out. We also want to say our experience in Greece has been absolutely wonderful. The Moorings Greek base were more than willing to help us sort out issues and recommend various contractors and supply stores. They actually talked to us and helped us to work though the repairs. This again shows that it all comes down to the individual base management of this company. They have boats for sale and I would not hesitate to recommend them (ask for Mike, as he is the manager and is a genuine and overall wonderful person).  If buying from the BVI base, ask for Giles; but honestly, any Moorings broker in the BVI will probably treat you well, as the culture across the pond is different.