On June 18, 2024, we closed on the sale of our house AND hopped on a plane to Charleston, SC to begin the search for our new floating home. We met up with our boat broker in Charleston to take a look at a sort of “performance” (fast) catamaran that was on our list, and then headed to Miami, FL to check out several more boats, helping us to narrow down what boat we wanted to pursue. While I really liked the Leopard 46′, it was out of our price range. Jason fell in love with our friends’ Lagoon 440, and this make/model was definitely in our price range, so we began the search from there.
We did get the chance to check out a 2009 Lagoon 440 in Grenada in July 2024, and we even put an offer on it, but the owners were very rigid about their asking price, and we quickly walked away from the deal…it was getting too difficult. This actually worked out in our favor, as we ultimately found our 2006 Lagoon 440 in Brunswick, GA. Our broker drove up from his home in FL to give us a video tour, and we decided to put in an offer, which was accepted.
Fast forward to July 31…Jason and I flew to Savannah, GA to participate in the survey/sea trial. Like a home inspection when buying a house, a survey/sea trial is meant to inspect a boat for any major/minor problems (mechanical, water ingress, systems functioning, sails, etc). We met up with our broker, a marine surveyor, the owner’s broker, and two captains that were hired to move the boat from the marina in Brunswick to the boat yard in Savannah (since the owners were unable to attend the survey) early in the morning, and the first thing we did was get the boat to the travel lift for a short haul.
A short haul allows the surveyor to inspect the hull for soft spots, the thru-hulls, the anodes, the props, and the rudders…basically, looking at the structure integrity, etc. It was the first time seeing a boat this size pulled out of the water, and it was an impressive sight. Pretty much everything checked out (although it was pointed out that we had mismatch props…not a big deal, but changes the way it drives a little), but we’d have to wait for the official survey to get better details.
Once the boat was back in the water, we did the sea trial. This is where we run engines at varying speeds, raise the sails, and explore the nooks and crannies while the surveyor digs into bilges and systems and engines, etc. We were out moving on the water for a relatively short amount of time, then tied back up at the dock so the surveyor could continue inspecting everything. We spent much of that time sitting inside the salon chatting with our broker and the husband/wife captain team who brought the boat up.
We really liked everything about the boat and were excited about the prospect of it being ours. I remember just sitting there being able to envision our life aboard the boat and really hoping that nothing major would come up in the survey.
It ended up being a really neat day for Jason and I, and I seem to remember us continuing to say “wow, that was SO cool” when we got back to our hotel.
We did have some things come up in the survey that presented concerns, but they weren’t deterrents to us (obviously, since here we are almost two years later on the boat in the Bahamas). The main issue was metal in the oil of the saildrives, indicating some mechanical problems with them. We consulted with a mechanic, and he gave us some advice that we followed our first season out. We did ultimately need some extra work done on them, which was done November 2025 in Charleston as we made our way back down from Maryland.
But overall, the boat was in excellent shape, and it officially became ours August 26, 2024.