Log XVI - Artemis 1 (Preparation for the Maiden Voyage)

There was a mix feeling of excitement and anxiousness when I saw her for the first time. I think this is the same feeling as meeting your pen pal, or in this era, your online boy/ girlfriend at the airport. Excited because you can finally meet the person that you are so looking forward to see, and anxious because you are worried that she may not meet your expectations.

When I first saw her, she was cuddled safely on top of a trailer.

Though a bit rugged from weeks of sailing across the oceans, she instill an air of elegance as she exited the terminal gate with the police already lined up to escort her. I followed her all the way from the gate until she finally checked in at Raffles Marina.

She was transferred to her cradle the next morning and would spend the next couple of days here for the installation of fish finder and AIS.

After the installation of the electronic equipment was completed, we would begin our first maiden voyage together from Raffles Marina to Republic of Singapore Yacht Club. I asked a good friend, John Hendricks, who practically spent his whole life sailing to help out on this journey. And luckily he was on board because just moments after we left Raffles Marina, her port side engine temperature alarm went off. Frankly I did not know what to do at that time, the natural action was to switch off the engine immediately. And this was my first encounter and a prelude of her many problems that would be coming our way.

Log XV - Artemis 1 (Shipping - Part 2)

After 6 weeks of waiting, Artemis 1 finally checked in to Singapore PSA Terminal.

There were many preparation work to be done during this period of waiting so that the process of importing the boat will be as smooth as possible.

1) Look for a berthing place for your boat. There are a few marinas in Singapore and most of them have very limited or no berthing lots left. Here is a list of marinas in Singapore:

North
- Punggol Marina
- Sembawang SAF Yacht Club.

South
- Keppel Marina
- One Degree 15

East
- Changi SAF Yacht Club

West
- Raffles Marina
- Republic of Singapore Yacht Club

Please let me know if I have missed out any marinas in Singapore. A berthing lot confirmation letter from the marina is necessary for the registration of your boat.

Alternative you can purchase a property at Sentosa Cove with a personalized berth at your back yard. This is the most ideal arrangement and if you have a property like this, please do invite me to sail to your back yard for a visit.

2) Find a local transporter to transfer your boat from PSA terminal to your marina or back yard. Take note that not all marinas have the facilities to unload your boat onto the water.

Please check with your marina whether they are able to handle the size of your boat. If not, you may have to transport your boat to a marina that has such facilities such as Raffles Marina, to unload the boat onto the water and then sail the boat to your marina.

The allowable cargo height to be transported on Singapore roads is 4.5m. The trailer's height is about 1m, so that leaves maximum 3.5m for your boat height. If your boat has a height more than 3.5m, you may have to transport your boat by sea through engaging a tow boat to tow your boat directly from the PSA Terminal to your marina. This procedure is more expensive and is not covered in this post because luckily my boat is only 3.4m high. Phew...

Though my boat is within the height and length limit, the width of 3.8m puts her in the over sized category which requires police escort, which also means more damage to my wallet.

3) If you are sailing your boat back from another marina, please standby an engine mechanic on that sailing day so that he will be able to do a sea trial with you before you begin your maiden journey.

Be prepared that if the engines are not operating well, your boat may have to extend her stay at the temporary yard. I actually skipped this step when my boat arrived.

And so the worse case scenario always happen. My port side engine broke down halfway while I was leaving Raffles Marina and I had to rely on the starboard engine to crawl slowly to my destination. The journey took me 2.5 hours instead of 40 minutes. And because this was unexpected, the petrol tank was a few drops to empty when I arrived. My first and most stressful voyage on board Artemis 1.

4) Buy marine insurance for your boat. This is required prior to your boat registration too.

5) Find out where you can buy safety equipment i.e. flares, life jackets, fire extinguisher, etc., to prepare yourself for the boat safety inspection.

Certain items are cheaper if you order from overseas so you can start your online shopping in advance.

6) Familiarized yourself with the registration procedures at MPA One Stop Document Centre (OSDC). For example, your transporter has to declare that they have received the cargo before you can register your boat, so make sure the transporter has done that before you make your trip down to Tanjong Pagar Complex.

7) Importing cargo procedures are usually done by your transporter.

Make sure you have all the necessary documents i.e. bill of lading and packing list, ready for your transporter to clear your cargo from the port. These documents are from your overseas transporter, so if you do not have and want to retrieve the documents last minute from the overseas transporter, you may not be able to get them in time fro your port clearance.

8) Install AIS. This is a mandatory requirement by MPA which is also one of the boat registration essentials. The MPA officer will issue your boat registration number to you for you to register for a MMSI number to program into your AIS. You will have to email the MMSI registration certificate to OSDC to complete your boat registration.

Lastly after you got your boat registration number, look for a Singapore Pools outlet, place your bet and hope that your boat purchase can be partially or fully subsidized.

Log XIV - Artemis 1 (Shipping - Part 1)

The length of my boat is 33ft but with the addition of the bow pulpit and transom swimming platform, the total length adds up to 38ft. She has a width and height of around 13ft each and therefore cannot be fitted into a standard 40ft container. She had to be transported using a flat rack.

Photo of another boat on a flat rack

A flat rack is simply a metal deck with a wooden cradle on top for the boat to sit on. The boat will be secured by using straps tying down onto the flat rack. This method of shipping will cost much more than using a container as there is no space efficiency on a container ship due to the unusable stacking space on top of the rack.

Since the re-conditioning work took 3 months to complete, I had ample time to look for a reliable and cheap shipping agent. I had requested for quotations from both US agents and local Singapore agents and my conclusion is - engage an US agent for the interstates and international shipping and local agent for shipping within Singapore. This will be the most cost effective but you will have to do some coordination work yourself when the boat arrives.

Please try to get as many quotations as possible especially on the international shipping. You will be surprised that the costs can vary by tens of thousands. As a reference, the highest quote I had gotten was $40k and the lowest was $15k. But please do not be too happy if you get a very cheap quote because some of them may not be reliable and worst case scenario, they may be scams. I had approached a few shipping companies and somehow my information was shared to other shipping agents which I did not request quotation from. I received calls at night from unknown shipping companies asking for my boat information and offering their services. These are the companies that gave me the lowest quotes.

I felt insecure using the cheapest shipping company and so I did a background check. I was shock that this company with the cheapest quote was not even listed in the US list of approved shipping agents. I could not imagine what will happen if I engage them. Perhaps I can still get my boat in the end but I better not leave the fate of such a big investment to chance. In the end I engaged a shipping company with a proven track record and the costs was around $20k. This price was way off my budget by the way because I made the mistake of extrapolating the costs based on normal container shipping rates when I was planning the purchase.

Contacts were given to the shipyard and the shipping agent so that they could coordinate the loading out.

The boat was transported over 600km on road across the states from Gulfport in Mississippi to Savannah in Georgia. And after a 2 weeks delay at Savannah port due to some labour shortage issue, my boat was finally ready to begin her voyage across the oceans to this little red dot.

Oops did I forget to shrink wrapped the boat before shipping? Sadly yes, I really had forgotten to ask the shipping agent to do it. She would be collecting dust from half the globe for 6 weeks as a welcome gift to her new owner.

Log XIII - Artemis 1 (Re-conditioning)

As mentioned in my earlier post, re-conditioning your boat in the US will generally be cheaper because of the huge boating industry over there. However there are certain things that I will recommend you to do it locally such as the installation of marine electronic equipment i.e. chart plotter, radar, fish finder/ sounder, auto-pilot, etc. because the warranty for these equipment usually do not cover overseas.

You will also require the technician/ electrician assistance once a while to troubleshoot your electronic equipment. It will be good to know the local agent well by purchasing your equipment from them.

So what are the stuff you can ask the US yard to do for you? The most important thing is to ask them to clear all marine life i.e. barnacles from the hull.

This is crucial because there are laws forbidding foreign marine life to enter the borders of some countries. I'm not very sure how strict it is in Singapore regarding this, but if your boat is going to be shipped from US to Singapore, it will definitely stop by many countries. A wiser decision is to clear the barnacles before shipping to avoid any trouble with the law. And if you are clearing the barnacles, you might as well ask them to apply the anti-fouling paint too. This is essential if you intend to berth your boat in the water. Barnacles attack the hull very fast even with the anti-fouling paint, not to mention if the hull is unprotected.

Looks much nicer after application of the anti-fouling paint isn't it? These are the rest of the services that I had asked the US yard to do for me prior to shipping.

- Replacement of water heater (it's hard to get 110V rating water heater here, so I took the risk of changing it there. Foresee that water heater will not spoil so easily.)

- Installation of sound insulation in engine room.

- Replacement of tachometer.

- Repair windshield wipers (just some troubleshooting of the wiring to make it operational again.)

The list was not long but it took 3 months to complete.... It was last December when the boat sailed to the ship yard. Shortly after was the Christmas and New Year break. This break was further extended when the repair guy went for a 3 weeks road trip in his caravan. And finally when he was back, delivery for some of the parts were delayed due to the harsh winter.

Anyway long story short, I was very happy and excited when everything was done and I thought that I could just turn the key and happily sail into the sunset when the boat arrives, but I was wrong. All the above repairs were just the tip of the iceberg...

Log XII - Artemis 1 (Pre-Purchase Part 2)

The boat inspection report will contain the information of all the equipment and accessories on your boat, with the findings and recommendations for the defects. It will also give a valuation of your boat and you better keep your fingers crossed that the valuation is lowered than what you had offered so that you can use it as a bargaining tool for the final negotiation.

The most important component of your boat is of course the engines.

However the inspection will only cover visual checks, engine/ transmission oil analysis and a sea trial to test their performances. Any latent defects can only be found through thorough inspection by an experienced mechanic which is hard to find when you are so far away, unless you have contacts over there. So you will just need to rely on the limited information you have on the engines and take a calculated risk.

The visual checks are mainly for exterior corrosion. All marine engines will corrode over time. It is just how well you maintain them. For exterior corrosion, it can be quite easily rectified by painting a layer of anti-corrosion paint over. This shall be covered in more details in my post on protecting your engine against rust.

In my opinion, the engine/ transmission oil analysis is not that helpful. It shows the content of the various compounds found inside the oils and highlight which of them are excessive. However you cannot pin point where the problem is until you really use the engines. The excessive compounds detected may just simply due to an overdue engine oil change. You can save this oil analysis costs if you want to.

Before the sea trial, the inspector will do an engine compression test.

This will test whether the cylinders can hold sufficient pressure. If the pressure is too low, there are many implications. The solution can be as easy as replacing a damaged gasket or as complicated as replacing a broken piston. So if the compression test is not satisfactory, I will suggest that you reconsider your options as you do not know what engine problems you will be dealing with in the future.

The sea trial will give you an idea of what is the boat's maximum and cruising speed and at what RPM.

You can check this information against the engine manufacturer's specifications and see whether does the performance match. Take note that the performance will be lower than the specifications due to the engine age, wind and current conditions during the trial, and the condition of the hull. My boat engines were running at about 80% of the specified performance which I feel is good enough considering the age of 14 years and not to mention the condition of the hull with barnacles infestation.

The inspector will also highlight if there are any obvious problems during the sea trial such as excessive cranking during startup, excessive exhaust smoke, engine temperature and pressure consistency, steering transmission, etc. I will not be able to cover all the possible problems that can happen during a sea trial. If you are unsure of certain issues, you can drop me an email or comment below and I will try to help to the best of my knowledge, or you can ask Mr Google know-it-all.

Log XI - Artemis 1 (Pre-Purchase Part 1)

Once the price is accepted by both you and the seller, you will have to put a deposit to show that you are really serious.

For my case, the deposit was 10% of the selling price. You can either use internet banking (if you are transferring to a bank that is in your bank's list) or you can use telegraphic transfer (if the bank is not in your bank's list). Both services will incur a transfer fee from your side and there will be another transaction/ conversion fee from the receiving bank. So you will have to factor these 2 bank charges in when you do the transfer so that the receiving party can get the full payment. Most of the time, you will not know what are the charges from the receiving bank, you may have to ask the agent or in my case, I just put in an additional USD$25. You can request the agent to cover for the rest if the fee is exceeded.

After the agent receives the deposit, you can request for an inspection and sea trial. Since you are not physically there, you can appoint a third party inspection company to do all these for you. Try to find a company that is near to the boat's location or they may charge extra for the longer journey.

I will strongly recommend that you engage the inspection service before finalization of the purchase. If the inspection turns out to be perfect (which is highly unlikely), you will have a peace of mind. But if the inspection is not so satisfactory, you can either use the inspection report and request for more discount or just drop the deal entirely. My inspection included the engine oil analysis with a sea trial and it cost about USD$1,500. There were some defects found which were not reflected in the boat description put up by the agent. So I managed to get another USD$4,000 off the previously agreed price due to the newfound defects.

Basically it is a win-win situation for you to do the inspection. If the report is satisfactory, you know you are getting a good deal. If the report is unsatisfactory, you can use it to further lower the selling price, which in most cases, the discount will be more than the cost for the inspection.

On top of that, you will be more aware of the defects of the boat and you can decide whether you want them to be fixed over there or do it when your boat reaches your country. Since boating is very common in USA, generally the repair costs are cheaper as compared to Singapore - where most of the services related to marine are very expensive.

Just bear one thing in mind. Boats are not like cars, especially cabin cruisers. There are much more equipment and stuff to maintain, so it is very difficult to find a used boat that is in turnkey condition. There are bound to have some parts due for servicing. With this expectation in mind, you will not feel so frustrated about the defects and will enjoy the buying cum learning experience more.

In my next post, you will know what are the things to look out for to service before shipping your boat across the globe.

Land Log XI - Back to Lazarus Island

Let's take a break from boat purchase this week. We went back to Lazarus Island again, but this time round we did not take the public ferry, my friend ferried us there using his boat.

This is really a beautiful place. Want to know how beautiful is it?

The clear turquoise water against the blue sky. You can see Singapore city landscape in the background.

This time round, we had a few students with us who are keen to learn fishing. What a perfect environment to learn something new while enjoying nature.

The fish here are not spectacular but they are enough for beginners to experience the fun of fishing.

All the fish caught were released safely back into the sea. Though we did not catch a fish sizable enough for dinner, we had a fulfilling day. Experience like this is hard to come by in our small island city.