Finally a Grady White owner and finally got her back home safely...

[Mustang65fbk]

For those of you that "know" me, I've been looking for a GW 228 Seafarer now for just over the past year. I live in the Seattle area and have a beach cabin on Whidbey Island here in the Puget Sound. For about 4 years, I'd owned a 21' Arima, that I also ironically bought in Maryland, and that boat worked well for what we needed it to do in front of the cabin. The majority of what we do is salmon fishing, crabbing, cruising, halibut fishing on occasion as well as shrimping on occasion. The Arima for being only a 21' boat had a good deal of fishing room in it and it was a very light boat, so it felt like you were towing a dinghy. The issue was that it's a very light boat, has a modified vee and all of the weight is in the rear of the boat. So it would pound very badly in 1-2' chop and make it almost unbearable when the tide would change and you had a trek back to the cabin. I sold that boat last September and wanted something a bit bigger, more comfortable and that I could keep hopefully for the next 10-15 years or so. Several people recommended Grady White so I looked into them and really liked the 228's with the transom bracket. Looked for one all of last winter as well as this year, found a couple, put offers down on a couple as well but ultimately didn't end up purchasing any of them. Found the one in the other thread that I'll link below as well as the listing for the boat, then flew out to Maryland from Seattle just over a week ago, looked at the boat with another forum member, took a sea trial run and told them I wanted the boat. Agreed on a price with the company, Tri State Marine in Deale, MD and after they inspected the trailer once again, I rented a U-Haul truck and started off for Seattle on Thursday morning.

Anyone live in the Baltimore area? Looking at/would love opinions on possibly buying a GW 228 Seafarer.

Anyone live in the Baltimore area that knows a thing or two about GW’s? I’m flying in tomorrow to look at a 2004 GW 228 Seafarer on Monday - I live in the Seattle area. The dealership said they don’t take down payments or do any transactions that aren’t in person. Luckily they said the boat is...

www.greatgrady.com

Grady-White Seafarer 228 boats for sale - Boat Trader

Find Grady-White Seafarer 228 boats for sale near you, including boat prices, photos, and more. Locate Grady-White boat dealers and find your boat at Boat Trader!

www.boattrader.com

 

[Mustang65fbk]

The first day I drove from Tri State to a small city called Richmond, IN which was right around 550 miles of driving. Towing the boat/trailer was no issue for the U-Haul truck, although I was only getting about 10mpg with it. I wanted to spend the night in a smaller city that was a bit safer and had a secure hotel parking lot for leaving my boat out overnight so that it wouldn't get broken into or vandalized.

Day two, I went from Richmond, IN to another small town, this one was located in Blue Earth, MN and that drive was just under 700 miles. The truck/trailer/boat held up just fine and doing mostly highway driving made it a relatively easy drive. I put in about 12 hours or so of driving that day and got into my hotel room around 8:30 or so. The weather was a bit frustrating as it was very windy, then it got dark and started raining at the end of the day's journey and wasn't sure if it was like before where I had a couple tornado's touch down in the general area where I was. Even 10-15 miles away from a tornado is still too close for comfort in my opinion. The hotel parking lot didn't have a turn around area, which I didn't realize until it was too late... so I did an "Austin Powers" move and went back and forth about 15 times to get turned around. But I finally did and was even slightly impressed by myself after a long day of driving haha.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

Day three I was really starting to feel the driving catching up with me and with all of the differences in time zones from initially flying out to the east coast to driving and switching time zones again, I hadn't been getting much sleep. So the morning of the third day, I was starting to get a bit tired and ready for the drive to be done with. I drove from Blue Earth, MN to Buffalo, WY and logged just under 700 miles of driving and again around 12 hours of driving for the day. It was another long, grueling day and realized the U-Haul truck didn't have cruise control... so just having to keep your foot over the gas pedal the entire time as well as driving defensively was mentally difficult to do.

Day four I went from Buffalo, WY to my aunt and uncle's house in a place called Pasco, WA. In the morning, I did an inspection of the trailer as well as everything else, just like every other morning, and noticed that the safety chain from the trailer to the boat was unhooked. I don't know if someone did that at the hotel or if it bounced off along the way since the drive was quite bumpy. I'll have to get one of the safety chains with the clamp on it so that it doesn't happen again, but I had an extra padlock so I put the hook around the bow eye and then padlocked a link of the safety chain through the bow eye so that it wouldn't separated again and didn't have any other issues. The drive was around 840 miles and was again feeling very tired and worn out from all of the driving that I'd done up to that point. Montana is a very wide state at almost 600 miles wide and is pretty exhausting to drive through, especially doing the entire drive in just one day. Lots of animals to look out for like deer, skunks, coyotes and even larger animals like elk or buffalo. Luckily I didn't hit anything and made it to Pasco without any issues besides a ton of bugs on the windshield and roof of the truck as well as a lot of wind in the western part of Montana. At one point the winds were so strong that it started moving the boat and truck from side to side and made it difficult to do over 65 mph. Also, driving down the hills and mountain pass on the western part of the state felt as though it was never-ending.

 

[Hookup1]

Beautiful boat. Best of luck.

Wow! I sure would have like to have booked that Uhaul rental! We are dealers.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

Yesterday, on Monday was day number five and I made the short jaunt from Pasco, WA back to my parents house in Edmonds, WA. I'm keeping the boat there as they have a long, flat driveway compared to the one at my house which isn't as deep and has a little bit of an incline to it. The drive was only around 240 miles and was very short and quick compared to the previous days of driving... which I definitely wasn't opposed to at this point. Didn't have any issues other than bugs and keeping the windshield clean enough to see out of. Left Pasco around 11:30 and got back to Edmonds around 3:30 before any serious traffic set in. Didn't really have any issues so to speak of except for a few of the small circular hatches blowing off and sitting inside the boat itself. The speakers from the hardtop also broke off and fell into the boat... so I'll have to find replacement brackets or just buy all new speakers.

Some tips or bits of advice that I'd like to mention... if anyone is thinking about doing a cross country trek while trailering a boat... I honestly wouldn't. This is the third time I've done it, the first time was out and back to the east coast, and the second two times were just one way. It was exhausting doing the drive a third time, especially by yourself, while trying to stay focused the entire time and defensively driving. It probably cost about $3,500 to $4,000 to do the trip myself, which I got shipping quotes from just under $4k up to over $5k, and the only reasons for doing it myself were that most shipping companies seemed to be at least 2-3 weeks out and then it would take them another week or so on top of that to get the boat out here. I really didn't want to wait that long to get it, and then the thought in the back of my mind was "what happens if there's a problem and the boat gets damaged?" or just the unknown? I like to do things my own way, that way if there's an issue, I'm the one to blame. I didn't want to have an issue with the boat showing up from a shipping company damaged and then having them say "well that's how we picked it up from the dealer" and then have an issue. The first two days of the trip were fun, the second two started taking their toll, but by the last day I was just excited to be back home and in my own bed. I honestly don't know how I did it round trip the first time out and back 4 years ago where I did 1100-1200 miles each in one day. I would also plan a bit and figure out how many miles you want to drive, allow yourself extra time as fueling up, eating and stopping to go to the bathroom all add up in the end. If you're going to do the drive yourself, figure out which cities you want to stop in and if you're going to get hotel rooms, book them in advance if possible. Thanks to all that responded to the other thread and for all of your advice and words of wisdom. I'm very excited to now be back home safely and with no accidents or issues involving the truck, boat or myself. My upcoming projects for the boat will be getting downriggers purchased and installed on the boat, which I've done before by myself. And then I'll likely upgrade to new electronics and maybe even radar. I like the Garmin 943xsv and think that along with the Garmin Fantom 18" radar dome would be a great upgrade. The current model on the boat is an older Garmin 7" touchscreen device but it doesn't have side scan and is on the older side. Still works, and might use it for a season, but will likely upgrade soon. Also, other things would be putting some elbow grease into cleaning the boat after the 3k mile trek back home, cleaning up the seats and so on.

 

[billyttpd]

I hope you took the time to see the 100 foot tall statue of the "Green Giant" while you were in Blue Earth. I saw it years ago on a cross country motorcycle trip. and good luck with the new boat.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

Beautiful boat. Best of luck.

Wow! I sure would have like to have booked that Uhaul rental! We are dealers.

Thank you! And yes, the place I booked it from was very excited when I got there haha. Luckily the U-Haul truck that I got only had 34k miles on it and was pretty much new. The others had quite a bit more miles on them and was very thankful that I didn't get one of those.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

I hope you took the time to see the 100 foot tall statue of the "Green Giant" while you were in Blue Earth. I saw it years ago on a cross country motorcycle trip. and good luck with the new boat.

Haha I did see that, as well as the giant candle along the way and other "odd" attractions that were kind of random or in the middle of nowhere. Saw a billion signs for Wall Drug, of which I didn't stop but have heard it's a fun place to visit.

 

[TopsulTime]

Wow! and I thought my tow was pretty long. I brought my SF282 down to NC from N Maryland a few wks ago. About 450 miles with my own 2500 GMC gas 6.0. The truck did awesome but only got 7mpg. I left at 8pm and arrived at 5am. I kept my speed at a max of 65.

Congrats on your new rig

 

[Byram]

Good going mustang !!!. I did the one way, Ct to Ca solo many years ago..I felt the same way. Looong days behind the wheel. On a side note ..did you support the outboard other than the factory lock ? block of wood ? wonder if the bracket is fatigued in any way... Glad you got home safe

 

[Lt.Mike]

You did find a beautiful boat and I’m a little jealous!
I kinda grimaced when I saw you were pulling it with a uhaul. Not that it can’t do it they are just such pigs on gas. Once home you’ve got a great story to tell plus you did say this was going to be your 10-15 year boat.
You won’t want to part with it after going on a epic journey like that !

 

[Mustang65fbk]

Good going mustang !!!. I did the one way, Ct to Ca solo many years ago..I felt the same way. Looong days behind the wheel. On a side note ..did you support the outboard other than the factory lock ? block of wood ? wonder if the bracket is fatigued in any way... Glad you got home safe

I just used the factory lock. My uncle climbed up the transom bracket using the swim ladder and didn't really have any flexing... and he's almost 300 lbs.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

You did find a beautiful boat and I’m a little jealous!
I kinda grimaced when I saw you were pulling it with a uhaul. Not that it can’t do it they are just such pigs on gas. Once home you’ve got a great story to tell plus you did say this was going to be your 10-15 year boat.
You won’t want to part with it after going on a epic journey like that !

Thanks! And yes, the fuel economy on the U-Haul truck definitely wasn't very good but I guess if that's typical for a regular truck towing a boat then I'm ok with it. I'd love to have this be a boat I can hold onto for 10-15 years as I don't want to do a drive like that again and definitely don't want to have to go boat shopping again for months and months at a time. The boats on the east coast are just so much cheaper than they are out here on the west coast. I bought this one for $26.5k and similar ones out here in Seattle have sold for basically double that price.

 

[leeccoll]

Good stuff, nice hull and I hope you have many trouble-free years with her.

Quite a trip!!

Congrats

 

[PointedRose]

Congrats on the purchase and safe journey, and enjoy!

 

[efx]

The prices we pay for the boats! Money and physical pain. I swear we are all crazy. I’m glad you made in to WA. Grady 228s are awesome for the west coast. You bought a good one.

 

[nuclear]

Congrats on the new boat, that's quite the journey and I know I wouldn't want to do it.

 

[Blaugrana]

Congrats on the boat!

 

[family affair]

You have my vote for a diamond upgrade on the man-card for driving 2900 miles with no cruise control.
I did 2200 miles for a 248 and 1800 for the 270 10 years apart. It'll be at least another 10 before I even think about doing that again!

 

[Don Davis]

Congrats on the 228, you are going to love it. I was polishing mine this summer and saw the ghost numbers from the previous registration decals to find out that it was in North Carolina at one time. Makes we wonder how it ended up in Vancouver BC where I bought it and if there’s a long distance story like yours.