We narrowed down our search to bluewater cruising cats that we might be able to get under $100K, and that left us with Gemini (there are a lot of them but they are more lightly built than we'd like), Prout (the Snowgoose is the size we need, the Snowgoose with twin engines was particularly what we wanted, for the safety of redundancy, the Snowgoose Elite, while 1'1" beamier, has slightly less optimal sailing characteristics), Catalac (great boats but there are few of them), Victory (again, few and proud). Then we watched what was available. Our plan to pay off our credit cards and accumulate cash to go was coming along, but as we expected, we would not have enough to really do this until summer, 2010.

In the meantime, we saw a Prout go for a fairly small price (they had been asking a small price to start with, so the boat needed work -- they were asking 79K and it went in the low 40s), and that boat was dismasted on her delivery voyage, and apparently had some trouble with her drive after the new owner got her back home, so we were wary. But one boat had been on the market for 18 months at $115K... and she seemed like exactly what we were looking for. Couldn't hurt to ask if the seller was interested in moving the price down to sell her. We called the broker.

Very businesslike guy, and easy to deal with, but wanted to know what we were willing to offer right away. Guess 18 months was long enough.