Nearly Scammed

After winning the O'Day auction I received two suspicous emails. They both claimed to be from eBay, and said that the seller's paypal account was down for a little while and that eBay's protection policy would cover a Western Union money transfer for the transaction. They had all pertinent information on the auction. My ebay name, the seller's name, the item ID, and links to important eBay pages.
So I clicked on the link to Western Union. I was ready to sign up and send the payment when I stopped; something was fishy. EBay always has reminders up on the site that you should never pay through an outside service. Besides that, the seller hadn't mentioned anything about Western Union in his preferred payments. Besides that, the emails just seemed a little off. So I checked my eBay message box, no duplicate messages. That's when I realized, I was almost scammed. I contacted the seller to double check, as I didn't really want to admit that I had almost been taken so easily. He assured me that his paypal was working perfectly, and that he had sent no such messages.
After a series of messages back and forth I got his contact information, and forwarded him a copy of the bogus email which he immediately reported to paypal. Hopefully some scam artist is being hunted down right now, and is about to get what he deserves.
The most amusing part, is that one of the links from the spoof email went to the "how to spot a spoof email" page warning about falsified eBay messages. The thing is, the person who set up this email scam read that page and eliminated almost all the telltale signs.
So I caught the scam before I was taken, but it could have gone either way for a little while there.

This is it!

Or rather, this is the beginning of it.
I think the good lord was smiling on me. I won the O'Day 25 with the $800 opening bid. No one else bid; it went off without a hitch.
Upon winning the auction, however, I received two suspicous emails. Long story short, they were scams. I'll cover the details in another post.
The emails were completely unconnected to the seller, and I am very happy with the way he handles his business.
This boat is almost exactly what I was looking for the whole time, even if I didn't know it. It's small, but fully furnished, can be trailered, was cheap but still in decent condition, and best of all, can be kept where it is until spring at no extra cost.
Now I just need to find a trailer and a way to load the boat onto it. After that... who knows? I just hope I'm as happy with this purchase when I see it as I am now.

I have a boat!

Could this be it?

Well, I'm bidding on an O'Day 25 on EBay right now... It's not the most ideal boat, but it has most of the features I originally wanted, and the swing keel makes it easily trailer-able, so I'm more likely to use it than a full keel boat I probably couldn't afford to keep in the water anyways. So this might not be a cruising boat, or even the right boat, but I'm becoming less and less sure that there's such a thing as "the right boat". I just hope I can buy it for cheap enough that I can get it home, and for the very limited amount of money I have to work with. Ironically, I beleive the boat in my home neighborhood was an O'Day 25 now that I think about it.
I guess that's all the news for now.

A decision at last

Well, I've been doing a lot of research on boats lately, and I compiled a list of features I want. From there I narrowed the search down to two boats I liked. The Pearson 26, and the Grampian 26. Looking further in to these models I tried to compare them. The two boats seem to be pretty similar. I like the storage available in the P26 with some modifications, and it's less ungainly appearance, but there's one problem. I want whatever boat I buy to be hoisted onto a trailer and taken home at the end of the season. The P26 is over the legal width limit for NYS and the G26 is, supposedly, not. If I found either one for sale cheap I would probably buy it, but I'm leaning for the mobility of the Grampian. I don't know... I'd like to verify the measurements in person to double check. Anyways, those are basically the two boats I'm considering. We'll see what comes of it all.

Calling in the experts

Well, after what seemed like a long week back at U.A., I'm back at home doing boating things. Today is probably my last chance to get on the water, so I'm taking a friend out on Onondaga Lake in Adra. It looks a little calm today, but hopefully it will be nice on the lake. So, the guy my dad called last time I was home is pretty excited about me getting more into sailing. Yesterday he came over with an armload of books for me to read and then we sat down and talked sailing. I don't remember for sure, but I believe we talked for over two hours. I learned quite a bit I didn't know and have slightly revised my list of potential boats. Now I'm looking for something I could tow with the truck at the beginning and end of the season. That way I wouldn't have to pay winter storage fees. It might still have to be craned on and off the trailer; something I may or may not be able to afford. Still, I now have a slightly longer list of places to look, and I have someone who knows what they're talking about if I have questions. Things are coming along slowly but surely.

Still Looking

Well, my friend and I went down to Ithaca to look at the 24' Allied Greenwich they had there and it was pretty sad. The side decks were mush, the fiberglass was split in a number of places, and most of the woodwork looked like it was ready to fall off at any minute. Besides that, the cabin was so small I could not sit on the settee without hitting my head on the cabin top. So that boat is pretty much out. There was a Triton there that might come up for sale soon, but I'm not really planning on waiting for that. Dad contacted one of the many people he knows, who also happens to be a sailor, and asked what boats he would recommend for cruising. So now I'm looking for Bristol 24's and Grampian 26's along with my previous wish list items. Next week I'll be home again, and I'll probably go back to Oneida Lake and see what there is to see. Everything still looks about a thousand dollars out of my price range, but we'll see.