If you are not interested, hit your delete key now! I have received several email messages from folks on the list wanting to know what is going on in my continuing purchase venture. I had not reported anything lately for several reasons. First, not that much had transpired and second ....yes I did receive some negative feedback from some on the list who said they were sick of hearing about it! Another reason is that at one point I just simply thought I was getting too much feedback from too many sources and that was just confusing the issue. Frankly, my head was spinning. Following the survey on the LRC in Ft. Lauderdale and my reports to the list and after wading through the tons of advice I was getting, everything from "walk" to "make this an opportunity to get a really good deal" I finally decided, after considering everything, that it was my decision and I had to do what I thought was right for me. Well, me said.......I REALLY like this boat and I want it if possible. But, me also said "don't do anything stupid here" so after considering all the issues I tried as best I could to come up with an offer on the boat that I could live with. That is what I did, after lots of consultation with various individuals, some on this list, some not, I wrote the seller a proposal asking that he fix certain of the items on the survey and give me a price reduction for the rest. I thought I was pretty fair in my assessments and that it offered a fair deal to the seller to make the deal happen. Seller responded that he was not interested in my offer. That ended that, or so I thought. One thing that had particularly irritated me about the deal to begin with was the blister issue. I know that all the older Hatteras boats are known to have had blister problems and in fact the Vista that I just sold had at one time had blisters. But, the owner of the Vista had previously had the hull peeled, dried and re-laminated about five years before I bought the boat and the Vista had no further blisters when I bought it and had none when I sold it some eight years after the blister job had been done. So, when I read the description of the Hatteras LRC in Ft. Lauderdale before making my offer and it stated that the LRC had been peeled, dried and "re-laminated" I naturally assumed that the boats previous blister problem had also been corrected. To me this meant a lot and was one of the reasons I agreed to such a high contract price on the boat. Therefore I was REALLY disappointed when at haul out there were blisters everywhere. Then after inquiry when I discovered that the boat had NOT been "re-laminated" as was stated in the listing, but had merely been treated with a barrier coat, I was MAD! There is nothing worse than relying on false information, in other words they just plain lied in the listing! But, giving the benefit of the doubt to the broker who listed the boat I assumed he had been mis-informed by the seller and therefore it was not his fault. However, NOW the broker knows that the statement "re-laminated" as stated in the listing is untrue and therefore I assumed he would correct the information in the listing, correct? Not, so. Listing still to this date states bottom was "re-laminated". This despite the fact that I contacted the listing broker personally and suggested to him that he might want to remove that statement from the listing now that he knew it to be untrue. However, as a result of my contacting the listing broker we did sort of get back into negotiations on the boat and the seller has shown some willingness now to correct many of the problems and the broker thinks he may now be willing to offer some price reduction for the blister problem. However, initially in this re-negotiation the problem with the "soft spot" on the foredeck was not one of the items they really wanted to do anything about. In my offer after the survey I had agreed to purchase the boat with a $3500.00 price reduction just for this defect. Well finally they agreed to have their own expert go out and assess the problem with that soft spot. They did and I talked to him today. upon inspection "their" expert has found the problem to be much more extensive than even my survey revealed. There is rot not only on the foredeck aft of the windlass/pulpit, but rot underneath the pulpit that extends into the chain locker. Their experts estimate to repair the problem, $10,000.00 to $15,000.00, depending upon how everything comes apart and what is found after the pulpit is removed. I just can't wait to see how that sets with the seller and his broker? I think I just dodged a bullet on that one? Be interesting to see where this goes now, one thing for sure I ain't buying the boat without this factored in, the price just went down a bunch. It is not without interest here that I also state that their expert also indicated to me that the area could be "masked" by drilling the deck and injecting epoxy into it. He said this could be done and would likely never be caught in a survey. But, he said that is not a cure and the problem will only get worse over time. Hope If I don't end up with this boat that some other guy doesn't get suckered if they end up just trying to mask the problem. But, like the guy said, sellers usually don't really care, all they want to do is unload the boat on someone else. Now I am not saying that this is what will occur, only that it is possible. Meanwhile, I am not going to do any bargaining on the Ft. Lauderdale boat at this point as I have located another. I have found another LRC for sale up in the Great Lakes, Michigan area to be exact (Brrrrrr) and I have just booked airfare to fly up and look it over in about two weeks. Would like to have gone sooner, but I have relatives coming into Florida to spend a week and cannot leave right now. This boat sounds better than the one in Ft. Lauderdale, definitely is better equipped, but I am not getting my hopes up too much at this point, after all I do know disappointment at this stage of the game. Jim Alexander, Realtor Boatless again (but not for long) Port Charlotte, FL