For Sale..Sailing Ends
DOCLE VENTO under sail off Key West, Florida
New bottom cleanup and paint
New flooring in main head
Polished hull
It's a frenzied time, these past weeks, after Dolce Vento arrived at our home marina. After quickly buying a car and nailing down an apartment (we move July 25), we turned our attention to getting Dolce Vento ready for sale.
The process is very much like preparing to sell a house and then living in it while it's on the market. It began with decluttering and depersonalization -- eight large plastic tote bins of clothes and stuff, our stay sail, and water and fuel jerrycans that all went to land storage. We also gave away sailing books, some tools, instruments and equipment that only boat lovers could treasure.
If you've been following the blog since the beginning, you know I'm a whiz at cleaning out and letting go of stuff, but I was dumbfounded at how much we had on Dolce Vento. We extracted "sacred" objects of all shapes, sizes and functions from compartments, lazarettes, lockers, cabinets, walls and shelves. But, damn, we still have plenty of clothes, pots and pans, dishes, linens, and sailing equipment to sail about the Bay (if the heat ever goes down and the wind comes up). At the very least we'll live comfortably at dock for the next several months until we move onto land. Really, it blew my mind away that of all the stuff we amassed, only two were never used in the nine months on the water -- the cable cutters and the emergency gear, definitely stuff you must have, but hope you never have to use.
At the same time we started on the "fix-ups" - a new Genoa sail, generator cooling system repairs, top-of-mast instrument installation, new bottom paint, new aft head (bathroom) teak floor and a good cleaning of my cherished navy hull. That's the big stuff.
There's also a serious list of small "fix-ups" that's going to keep us busy for the next couple of weeks. We've been organizing what's left to do as parts arrive, and are about to deep dive into cleaning and polishing, inside and out. The recent heat wave makes working on deck on our knees polishing bright work (the chrome), scrubbing away marks and stains on the white gelcoat, and sanding and re-staining the teak unbearable. Some things will just have to wait!
As demonstrated on HGTV, we want Dolce Vento to be stunning to the eye and hands-down functional in her operations -- totally ready for new owners -- if we want to get top dollar for her. Top dollar is, of course, a term of art in the boating world. Unlike buying and selling a home, which most likely will give you a positive return your investment, selling Dolce Vento will not return to us even a pittance of profit or even a crack in the break even point unless pigs fly (and we know they don't). It's something sailors do -- we spend time and money and then more time and money, again and again, knowing we do it for the love of the boat and boating, not for the love of money.