New boat.... New Mate.

The new shirt logo with the Viking instead of the Bertram

The 64 foot Viking Boxer. Soon to be Blue Heaven

Its been a while since my last Blog. The past month has been stressfull and full of ups and downs. The emotional rollercoaster of being captain of a boat that is for sale can be a trying time. The good thing is that we are upgrading and the new boat is real nice.

Blue Heaven coming out of the water for survey

We listed the boat with Galati Yacht sales and put the boat into the Ft Lauderdale boat show. Low and behold we received a call the first day of the show that a buyer from Ecuador was coming to the show to see our boat. He flew in and liked what he saw and made a good offer on the boat. I think we may have been the very first boat  to get a contract at the show this year. So........ Why all the emotional roller coaster and stress???? you may ask. One would think wow you sold the boat.....Its not that easy. Once the buyer makes an offer, then the buyer sends a mechanic to survey the engines and a yacht surveyor to look for anything wrong with the boat before he buys it. Any captain that has been on a boat that is for sale, will tell you that a survey is kinda like a grade on your ability to maintain a boat. A poor survey report reflects directly on the captain and crew. Then you throw in the mix, the fact that no Surveyor can know everything about all boats. Surveyors tend to do their survey and ask no questions. This can turn up things like " Garbage disposal is inoperative." He just did not know where the switch was. " The water maker will not make water" He did not have all the valves open. By and large, the Bertram Surveyed pretty good.  . Long story short, I am ready to be a "fishing" captain again.

There is always time for an adult beverage on south beach at sunset

At this point in the game, it looks a though the old 60 foot Bertram Blue Heaven is sold. We have an contract to buy a 64 foot Viking as our new boat. Im looking forward to the new boat. the old boat was a very good boat and caught us lots of fish. But the new one has so many more amenities and options that will make it a better boat to fit our program.
I no longer have Kyle as a mate. He has decided to move on and try to make a living on his own and run a center console boat as a charter boat. Thats a tough industry to get into in this economy and with all the regulations now a days. But I respect him for having the guts to give it a shot. Best of luck to yo Kyle you will be missed.  With that said, have had to hire a new crew member. It takes a while to build a team and I am going to give a guy a shot that has relatively no experience. I have had him work with me in the past two weeks and his personality seems to mesh well with mine. The fishing part is easy. The rest  will come with time.
Its going to be an exciting year on the new Blue Heaven