6/16/21 - boat shopping in Nashville

We had drove for a couple hours yesterday evening and made it to Columbia SC before garnering a hotel for the night. This had put us about 7 hours drive to Cherokee Marina on Hickory Lake above Nashville.   We departed SC early and arrived at the marina in Tennessee about 3pm.  The owner met us at the boat, ‘Constance Sea’.   The bot had been owned by the same person and garage kept for 28 years prior to its sale to the current owners just last year.  It was in very nice condition.   Beautiful paint job and overall splendidly maintained.  It unfortunately had a covered aluminum dock collapse on its upper Bimini/enclosure last winter under the weight of a bunch of snow.   Fortunately, it was insured and Marinettes are very tough old birds so it really did not fare too badly.   The repairs to the upper Bimini frame are still underway and expected to be completed by mid/late July.  

the flybridge bimini frame was still be be put back on after repairs from winter damage
no full flybridge enclosure though

We did not care for the look where they had replaced the aft deck canvas with plastic panels

short video tour of 'Constance Sea'

We REALLY want an actual walk around bed 

storage galore in the galley and throughout, but no full size fridge/freezer

After spending a couple of hours starting engines/generator and going through systems closely the owners had arranged with a licensed captain to take us out for a sea trial.  Bubba (the Captain) showed up after work at about 5:30pm and we went out for a nice cruise.   The boat drove and handles nicely; just  as it should and we were happy with what we saw.  

sea trial of 'Constance Sea' with Captain Bubba

We knew that we still wanted to look at the other Marinette in the Knoxville area and had already made the arrangements to meet with its owner there tomorrow morning at 10am so we told the owners of ‘Constance Sea’ that we would be following up with them soon after looking at other boats we had interest in.  

We departed the Nashville area around 6:30pm and drove for several hours to within about 10 miles of Ft Loudon TN where we had the showing of the next boat arranged for morning before grabbing a room at the trusty Days Inn to get rested up for morning.