The boat that wasn't

For the past couple of years, we’ve been looking for the perfect boat to call our floating home. This particular boat, a Najad 34 located in the far north of Scandinavia, seemed like it could be the one. It took us a month and a half to go and see it because the river was still frozen, and we had to wait until it thawed. Finally, we were set to see if our dream would become a reality.

We woke up early and took a bus to the airport. Walking to the bus stop, we realized how heavy our luggage was. Usually, we travel with just a small backpack each—a promise we made during our backpacking days to never travel with heavy luggage again. But this time, the circumstances were different. We hoped we would be sailing back on our floating home.

The journey was long: 24 hours consisting of two flights, a night train, and a 45-minute car ride. We ventured so far north that it was always day.

We arrived at the boat club, which was also a campervan camping site. The club's members were all over seventy. It felt like a place that would vanish once they were gone, with no one left to carry on. Yet, the setting was stunningly beautiful, with serene landscapes once dominated by the timber industry. Two Argentinians in this remote Scandinavian outpost, here to buy an old Swedish boat, must have been quite the sight.

Our first impression of the boat was that we loved it.

We planned a thorough inspection: two days out of the water, then into the water, raising the mast, and testing the sails and engine on the third day. We aimed to decide by the fourth day. That would leave us three more days to install an autopilot and select a weather window to start our journey out of the river and south. We wanted to start sailing as soon as possible because summer is short in these high latitudes. We estimated at least two months to sail back to the southwest of France with our limited sailing experience.

But whoever said boat projects take twice as long as expected was right.

The Inspection

The first two days were intense. We surveyed every nook and cranny, realigned the rudder with the wheel, and polished the boat at the owner's request, though we didn’t care much about that last bit. The mosquitoes were relentless. By the third day, we were ready to put the boat in the water. We were staying in a tiny cabin just a few meters from the boat, with access to a communal kitchen, toilets, and a shower that cost 5 kr for three minutes of water.

Putting the boat in the water was a huge event. A Doc Brown lookalike, from "Back to the Future," operated the strangest crane I had ever seen. It was a tense morning. The straps under the boat were at the wrong angle, risking a collision with the trailer. Finally, after a few hours, we succeeded. The whole club was watching.

Once the boat was in the water, we turned on the engine. It started on the first try—yes! We were so excited.

There was too much wind to raise the mast that day, so we decided to test the engine. As we were coming out of the channel, with the current owner at the helm, BAM! We hit something—it seemed like a rock. The sound was awful, and we bounced back. We checked for water or damage inside but found none. We continued, testing the engine.

It was a lovely evening, past 10 pm, and all was going as well as could be expected after hitting something. There was some smoke when we revved it up to 2800 RPMs, so we didn’t keep it at that pace for long. I did multiple figure-eights and tried the reverse. That's when the transmission failed—it felt unresponsive. Multiple attempts later, the same issue persisted: the boat needed to be still to engage.

Raising the Mast

The next day, we decided to raise the mast. The owner wanted me to move the boat, but I declined—it was still his boat, and I didn’t want to risk anything else breaking or running aground. The transmission failed again, making maneuvering difficult as we positioned the boat under the crane.

For the next couple of days, we organized the boat and separated the things we wanted from the things we didn’t while the owner made arrangements to change the transmission and haul the boat out again to check the damage from the collision with the rock—it turned out to be a concrete block. I made a mental inventory of everything, planning to do a proper inventory later.

We raised the mast without incidents but didn’t put up the sails. The owner left for a couple of days, organizing beforehand (sort of) to have the boat lifted on the weekend to fix the bump from the concrete block and change the transmission.

When the owner returned, we finally put up the sails. The mainsail was missing the two main battens, but other than that, the sails were in great condition.

The Test Sail

Finally, we went for the much-awaited test sail. We loved it! The boat sailed smoothly and beautifully. It kept its course and was easy to handle. There was a bit missing from the boom rolling system, which made reefing and handling the mainsail tricky, but there was a temporary solution in place and we figured we could probably find a better one soon.

After sailing for a while, we tested the engine again—now it had a "new" transmission. We cruised at 1200-1400 RPMs until it warmed up, then slowly revved up to 2800-2900 RPMs and held it there for a few minutes. Smoke began to appear.

After we were satisfied with our tests, we returned to the marina.

We were so ready to say yes to this boat! Despite its problems, we thought we could tackle them: missing battens on the mainsail, the boom rolling system, no autopilot, a non-working depth sounder (which the ad claimed was working), a very messy electrical system needing a complete overhaul, dodgy starter battery placement, engine issues every time we used it, a leaking water pipe intertwined with the electrical panel, and several ingress points for water.

We told the owner we hoped to negotiate the price down a bit since the sounder wasn’t working and the engine seemed to have issues. He initially refused but then offered a small discount.

We agreed to think about it and give him an answer that night or the following morning.

The Dealbreaker

It started raining. We had dinner and discussed. We agreed to buy it. The rain stopped.

“Wait,” I said, “before sending him a text, let’s check for leaks again.”

We went back. We found more leaks, but I was confident we could seal them. Then we found some oil we weren’t sure we’d seen before. The engine compartment had been clean from the start. We checked the oil for the third time since being on the boat. The first time it was golden honey-like (newly changed), the second time black (normal), and now it was marbled with gray streaks. Our yes suddenly turned to no. Water in the oil was a problem we couldn’t fix with our very limited engine knowledge, and we couldn’t risk a 2000 nautical mile coastal sail with an engine likely to fail.

Marbled oil was the dealbreaker for us.