I know you dont want to hear this.....Dont do it!!!!!!!unless you look at the boat yourself dont do it...

drove from Illinois to South Florida to bring back a boat that was to be in mint condition,,,,turned out to be a pile a chit!!!!and a friend works for this guy!!!!!!
spent the money and fly out there to see the boat,,is all I can tell you.....

I would not trust anyone ,,,,,especially the guy that owns the 38PQ in south Florida

Do like KREED did. Wire the full amount a week early and hope for the best.

If you are making a big purchase such as a high performance boat, a one day plane trip shouldn't hurt you. Hire a surveyor, let him do the survey, and try to be there for it. The surveyor will be able to check out the electronics on the boat for you. After it's done, let the bank handle the transfer of funds from your bank directly to the sellers bank.
I bought my 382 this way. I hired a surveyor that was highly recommended from this site. I don't remember his name. I couldn't make it there to see the boat myself, sominrelied on the survey 100%. The surveyor found the motors had 100 hours more than the tachs showed, so i guess I came out ok.
The surveyor didn't mention that the clear coat was blistered on the deck, and coming off in big sheets. He also missed that the trailer had major rust issues from steel in salt water. He said that the boat needed a good cleaning. I have been cleaning it since, and it hasn't removed the rust.
Fly out and loom at the boat yourself. Don't rely on anyone else. Had I flown out before my purchase, I would have negotiated the price of another trailer, new clear coat, and valve spring job. I was only alerted to the valve spring job by the survey, the rest of the issues I had to pay for, and am still paying for.
In my case, I was a little too excited about the purchase, and trusted the surveyor. In my opinion, the surveyor should have some liability on issues that he/she totally screws up on or misses. In My case, the surveyor screwed me out of approx 15k, but did find a discrepancy in the electronics. Therefore I would recommend both a survey and site visit
If I had flown out, I would not have anyone to blame but myself.

Go look at it 1st, and have a survey done and also a mechnical check-out done. And always sea trial the boat also, like others have said, engines run fine on the hose, but completely different on the water under load.
Dean

The guy I was going to have look at it was going to do a sea trial himself. I'm not strongly considering flying down on Saturday. Air Tran has flights in the $500 range but the planes are damn near empty so maybe I can work a deal with them. Peace of mind I guess. The only problem is the guy I had arranged to look at the boat planned to be done by 11am and I wouldn't even be able to get there until 11:30.

Trust me.....go look at it!!!

Get on the plane, way to many variables to a boat deal. You may get within 50 ft of it and say ' oh hell no' and turn back around.

Right now I'm just trying to decide if I can get there at the same time as the local can be there to help me out. I'm honestly not that knowledgeable when it comes to marine items so I want someone with the technical abilities to run a compression test and check the drives out. I'm willing to learn and should be able to, I've played with some high powered turbo cars and am just finishing up my mech engineering degree so I would like to think I have the ability to learn some new things.

If I can't be there at the same time as the local then I just may let him check it out on Saturday and give me the heads up on whether to fly down or not. He might just say it is a total piece of crap and to walk away. That would save me the cost of the flight at least.

I can understand the flight seems pricey, but you really should touch, feel, and ride on the boat. If the local leaves there earlier, have him call your cell and give you the scoop. I'm on my 7th performance boat and I would never buy another without closely looking at it myself. There are lots of good lessons in this thread that give you ample reason to fly down. There also have been lots of horror stories reported on OSO where people were not happy when they saw the boat.

To paraphrase Yoda, there is no try, only fly, so do not try, fly.