Nightmoves wrote:
We are looking for a similar boat also, infact I am pretty sure we are familiar with both the boats you have mentioned. The 318 is in Daytona Beach and the Chaparral in New Smyrna? The most serious concern we had on the 318 was how the water lines coming from the stern drives feeding the engines were cut and new thru-hulls were installed suggesting to me that they could have had a serious corrosion problem at the transom assembly, bravo's are known to do this in salt water. We also noticed there was water damage in the bow in the cabin. The trailer it is sat on is bent and it looks like rainwater has not been able to drain because of the angle it has been sat on the trailer. It's such a shame that it has sat so long ( I did notice the registration sticker expired Sep 2012) and just left to deteriorate. I wish we had been looking a year ago!
The Chaparral seemed to be upkept in a better condition but we did have concerns about the corrosion on the radar arch & forward bilge pump wasn't working. We were also looking for an aft stateroom table which it didn't have.
Good luck with your boat hunting, I hope we each find something that suits our needs! I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the boats!
Yup, it sounds like those are the same 2 boats. Looked at them both on Monday. The broker showed us the Chaparral in the water. Nice guy. The boat was super oxidized on the topsides, which was foolish since the lower 1/2 had been detailed and buffed in June when they had it out of the water. The cabin had a real strong mold smell despite the fact the AC was on & I saw a bunch of mildew when we lifted up the front berth mattress. Yuck, no thanks, NEXT....
The condition of the 318 is indeed a real shame. The interior didn't have any smell issues, and looked quite nice. I had not examined closely enough to see the bow water damage. I am not familiar with how Bravo's "should" look (only owned alphas) but I did notice a hose in the outdrive that appeared to have been simply cut in 1/2. It raised a flag that I would have looked into later, had we been interested. After some pestering, the broker provided us with all work receipts on the boat. Quite a laundry list of stuff that has gone wrong, but the occurrences of water in the fuel was enough to scare me off for good. Also the exterior condition was worse than I expected. Yes, the glass on the canvas appeared new, but the bimini was covered in mildew, and the whole topside was an oxidized mess. I set the viewing date several days in advance, and suggested to the broker that the seller may want to have the boat detailed to make his job easier, since I am serious about buying. The fact that it looked that rough and nobody lifted a finger to detail it for sale just tells me that they didn't give a hoot about the boat. It is really an unbelievable shame to let a boat go like that. Frankly, after seeing how badly these boats looked, and the litany of problems that the 318 had since new, it has somewhat frightened the Admiral and me off the idea.... I really don't need that much of a pain in the A$$..... kind of depressing.
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