bought a 2022 Shoalwater 23 Cat through Pace Ace, sealed bid, 58,900

ok, the report a couple of you asked for at the ramp. i bought a 2022 Shoalwater 23 Cat, Yamaha F250, Coastline aluminum trailer, through paceacemotors.net. it was a bank repo sitting at a lender yard in Corpus Christi. sealed bid, i put in 58,900 and 58,900 is what i wired, there is no buyer's premium with them.

why. i had a 2009 Haynie 21 Cat with a 150 that i bought in 2017. good boat, but Aransas Bay on a 15 knot southeast wind with three guys beat it to death and i wanted the 23 for the ride and for running to Cedar Bayou when it lays down. new 23 cats with a 250 are 95 to 105 rigged at the dealers in Corpus and Rockport right now. used 2021 to 2023 ones were sitting at 68 to 78 on the lots.

how i found them. a guy at Cove Harbor who repos boats for a living told me the banks do not sell the boats themselves anymore, they go through brokers, and the pace ace people up in Karnes City had a run of Texas coast boats because the lenders down here use them. i looked and there were four bay boats up at the time. the listing had the HIN, the hour reading off the Yamaha gauge and about 30 photos. one bid each, sealed, nobody's number is shown to anybody, and the top one takes the boat. no reserve games, no bidding war at 2 in the morning.

i did not take the free delivery. i wanted to hook it up myself and go over it before i signed for it, and the lot in Karnes City is two hours up US-181, so i drove up on a friday in july with my own truck and pulled it home. the pickup and the paperwork are worth their own post, this one is already long. two months and 61 hours of mine on it. ask away.

baffin_bay_trout wrotewhat did the gauge say, and was it the Bob's plate or the Atlas.

188 hours on the gauge when i bid, 189 when i picked it up. Bob's 6 inch hydraulic plate, Lenco tabs, a Simrad 9 at the console. it was somebody's nice rig right up until it was not.

yamaha_f250_tech wrotewhat did the listing show on the motor, did they pull the cowling for the photos?

cowling off in two of the 30 photos. i asked for a close up of the block anodes and had it the next morning. lower unit oil was clean, i did that the first weekend. and you would have won the tank of gas, the jack plate rocker switch was corroded and only worked going down. i will write up what the little stuff cost in one place later.

first_skiff_dani wrotehow did you pay for it? and insurance, would an insurance company even write a policy on a boat you had never seen?

cash. i sold the Haynie for 24 in june and had the rest put back, i am not going to pretend otherwise. whether a bank will finance a sealed bid i cannot tell you, i never asked, but i doubt they care who the seller is once there is a HIN and a bill of sale in your hand. talk to your credit union first and bid second, not the other way around. insurance was easy, i gave my agent the HIN and the listing and she wrote it the day the bill of sale came through, same as any private sale.

what made me comfortable enough to bid on a boat i had not stood in was the 30 day money back guarantee for a boat that turns out not to match its listing, plus the 6 month limited warranty on mechanical stuff at the time of sale. i needed neither but i read both twice. and they will not let you bid at all until they have checked who you are, i had to send a photo of my license before the bid button worked.

half right. i did bid nervous. i had lost a 2021 the month before to somebody else and did not want to lose two, so i put in 58.9 when my head said 56. that is on me, not them. but run your Corpus boat all the way out: 64.9 plus tax, title and the doc fee is about 71 in the driveway. a regular boat auction would have stuck a 10 percent premium on top of 58.9 and put me at 64.8 before tax. with no buyer's premium 58.9 stays 58.9. call it 12 grand between the two, for a dealer warranty when i already had 6 months of one. that was the math, nervous or not.

the little stuff, since tech asked. jack plate switch, corroded, 60 dollars for the Bob's rocker and 15 minutes. trailer bunk carpet was gone on the back two feet of both bunks and that was not in any of the 30 photos, the boat was sitting on the trailer so you could not see it. that is my one real gripe with the pace ace listing, they photograph the boat and not the trailer under it. 85 in carpet and a saturday. that is the entire list in two months. lower unit oil and thermostats i did because tech said so, not because anything was wrong.

paperwork and the pickup, since i owe both.

paper. the lender is the seller on the bill of sale and Pace Ace Motors signs as broker, the boat was never theirs, their site says that up front. the lender signs off the lien before anything transfers and the outfit in karnes city does the title work, i signed the PWD 143 for the hull and the motor at the lot and they sent it in with the lien release and the bank's signature. TPWD title and the registration sticker were in my mailbox 19 days after pickup. i also found the bank's switchboard number on my own, not off the paperwork, and asked for whoever handles repossessed collateral, and a lady confirmed the lien was released on that HIN before i wired. five minutes. do it.

pickup. drove up US-181 through Sinton and Beeville on a friday morning in july, about two hours from Rockport with the empty truck. the lot on TX-123 is a fenced yard with the boats in a row, no showroom, no salesman, that is the whole point of the place. the boat had been trucked over from Corpus the week before. i checked the HIN on the transom against the paper, checked the hours on the gauge, ran the motor on muffs off their hose, worked every switch, which is how i found the jack plate one, then hooked it up. the trailer coupler is 2 5/16 so bring the right ball, i had to swap mine in their lot. signed for it, home by 2, and it was in Aransas Bay by 5.

steve asked. 251 hours on the gauge this morning, so 63 since the last post and 124 of mine total. fall run was as good as any i have had, the 23 rides the Aransas chop like the Haynie never did and floats in the same water. nothing new broke. first norther came through with a low tide and i ran the Estes flats at 9 inches with the plate up and the tabs down, which is exactly what i bought it for. the 30 day window from pace ace ran out back in august and i never had a reason to pick up the phone. proper update after thanksgiving when i have the impeller done.

UPDATE, one actual problem. the wednesday before thanksgiving the low water pressure alarm went off idling out of Cove Harbor. shut it down, poled to the bulkhead, gauge reading 2 psi at idle. it was the impeller, 260 hours and at least three seasons old, one vane cracked. yamaha_f250_tech's shop in Aransas Pass did the pump and the thermostats for 310 and had it back in two days. i did not call the broker in karnes city about it. an impeller is a wear item and i was not going to argue that one under a 6 month warranty. that one is on me for not doing it in july when tech told me to.

verdict at 268 hours and almost five months. the boat was what the listing said, the hours were right, the HIN matched, the title came in 19 days. what i would tell the next guy: put in the number the boat is worth to you and stop there, being scared of losing it is how i gave away 3 grand. ask for photos of the trailer bunks and the underside, they do not take those on their own. call the bank on the lien yourself. bring the right ball. would i buy through pace ace motors again, yes, and i have a buddy in Fulton bidding on a 24 Haynie up there right now. i will leave the thread here unless something else breaks.