In Swahili, Songa means ‘move’; and after a long wait, we finally feel like things are moving.
In October 2021 we placed an order for our new yacht, a Fountaine Pajot Astréa 42 catamaran. We knew it would be a long wait. But it’s still frustrating, that feeling of our life being in a holding pattern. Now we’ve got movement and the goal is starting to feel real.
The process of buying a new yacht differs across the different boat builders. Our boat builder is Fountaine Pajot, a well known French boat builder. Ordering a yacht from Fountaine Pajot is similar to buying a new car. We don’t buy directly from them. Instead, all of our dealings are with one of their appointed dealerships, The Yacht Sales Company, who is the dealer for the Asia Pacific region. Technically we are buying the yacht from them. As I said, similar to buying a car: pick the model of boat; pick any additional options offered by the builder; and place an order. Sit back and wait … and wait … and wait …
The staff at The Yacht Sales Company have been very supportive and tolerant of our sometimes high level of frustration caused by: the waiting; and additional delays, which means more waiting. And then there’s the builder making changes to their design and build. In the grand scheme of things these are small changes, like changing the type of upholstery fabric and its colour. But when you’re already sick of waiting then a small change, at the time, can be a red flag to a bull. In hindsight, I’m quite sure that the dealership staff must have special training dealing with frustrated customers, waiting for their new yacht. Some are waiting up to 3 years.
With all of this waiting, there was a key milestone that we wanted to reach. A milestone that would signal to us that “things” are now happening. This was the phone call to tell us that we needed to sign off on the factory options: this signified that the builder was ready to progress the order onto their build schedule and the build was now queued onto the production line. Yay! At this point we had approximately 6 months to wait before the boat leaves the factory. And then about 3 weeks for commissioning and quality checks.
And then we get our boat? Close, but not quite. Remember the car example? When you buy a car, some options are handled by the manufacturer (color, upholstery styling, transmission type, engine size, etc) and some options are handled by the dealer (seat covers, towbar, etc). Same deal here. We’re getting the dealer to do some additional options that we can’t or don’t want to do through the factory. This adds about another 3-4 weeks of work after commissioning. During this time the yacht is not officially ours.
All up, we expect to take possession of our new boat some time in May, 2024. Fingers, toes and eyes crossed.
Sailing Songa 