BOAT BUYING
One summer, while living on our sailboat in Wickford, Rhode Island, I was invited for sundowners aboard Carol K, a Beneteau Cyclades 43, whose owners, Carol and Peter King, had stopped for the night during a summer getaway from their home waters of Noank, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound.
The Kings are avid sailors, and at the time organized CW’s Adventure Charters, a series of flotillas to exotic sailing locations around the world. They always have great stories to tell, and I looked forward to seeing their boat, which had recently finished service with the Moorings fleet in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.
Motoring over, Carol K was immediately identifiable because, well, even without company graphics, she looked like a charter boat—sort of. There was a colored…