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MILLENNIUM DRAGON SEA TRIAL
If you have gotten this far through the web site, have your life/finances in order and are motivated to make a purchase you may be ready to take it to the next level. As you prepared for this major change of life visits to several large boat shows were made. You wouldn’t buy a house without doing a “walk through” viewing many new model homes. After you have seen the new cruising (habitable, as the French say) catamarans at the boat show and felt the full blast of sticker shock, a “preowned” catamaran may be looking good to you. Time for more catamaran “walk through” excursions. You may want to check out the boats available through The Catamaran Company by viewing their web site: http://www.catamarans.com/ They have a reasonable selection of vessels in the same class as Millennium Dragon. This is a good place to do some price comparisons. Comparison shopping may also be done on the web sites for Multihull World (Europe):
http://www.multihulls-world.com/us/index.php
or Multihulls Magazine (USA):
http://www.multihullsmag.com/
If, at this point you feel Millennium Dragon is near the top of your list of vessels it is time to gather a little more information. Consider traveling to SW Florida to view the Dragon. You could do your walk through as part of a Florida Vacation. The Dragon lives in Punta Gorda, between Naples / Ft Myers / Sanibel to the south and Tampa / St. Pete / Sarasota to the north. As my wife and I are retired, a walk through could be arranged at virtually any time. If, nearing the end of your quest, the Dragon is at the top of your list it may be time to do a Sea Trial. Depending on how much information you want to gather and how extensive you want this Sea Trial to be it could be a day, three days, a week or several weeks on the water. I have no interest in taking fender kicking tourists out sailing. If you are truly interested in purchasing the Dragon and have gotten to the point of doing a Sea Trial, it is time to consider an earnest money payment. Earnest money qualifies you for a sea trial and is nonrefundable. Following the Sea Trial you should be ready to make an offer to purchase or walk away from your earnest money. This is the time to re-negotiate your offer. At this point your offer could be accepted and you just sail off into the sunset (or take advantage of the offer I make in section “Dragons Lair”.
Following a successful Sea Trial and acceptance of an offer to purchase, a haul out should be scheduled. Prior to the scheduled haul out, a reasonable down payment is required (enough to pay for the haul out, any modifications/upgrades you might specify and a surveyor’s fee). Following review of the surveyor’s report your offer should be contingent on your review of the results of a catamaran qualified surveyor’s report completed at the time of the haul out. This will allow you to walk away from the deal leaving your earnest money and down payment behind if you decide not to purchase the Dragon. The down payment is nonrefundable. After all, if you back out of the purchase without covering the cost, the boat yard doing the haul out and specified work would not waste time chasing you (out of State or out of the USA) they would simply put a lien on the Dragon.
With the Surveyor’s report and cost estimate from the yard in hand you will have all the information you need to make an informed decision regarding the purchase. If something unforeseen is discovered by the yard personal or your surveyor, you may want to either walk away or re-negotiate your final purchase price to incorporate the upgrades or changes you specify. I will be happy to re-negotiate the price regarding any structural issues discovered by the yard or surveyor. Cosmetic issues and any upgrades you want addressed during this haul out will be out of your pocket. The work is done, the boat is splashed and you sail off into the sunset (if you plan to go to Belize or Mexico first).
The schedule for your nonrefundable cost for various lengths of “Sea Trials” may be reviewed Below.
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