Hi John,
I sort of went through this excercise in the last couple of months.
The intention was to just buy it, stick it on a boat & ship it out to
Sydney & then do any repair work required.
I engaged a broker in Oz who did all the negotiating with the broker in
the US & it worked well until the results of the survey were known,
which in short read "I can't tell the extent of hull damage until I
take to it with an angle grinder!!!"
So this spooked me a little & I have canned the idea for the moment.
I don't believe the selling broker was up front as to the extent of
damage and from the photos on boats.com the boat looked OK & it was
floating (at the time the photos were taken & still was when the survey
took place)
Survey & Haul out added up to about $A1300.00
If I was to do this excercise again, I would engage the Oz broker
again, but deal within his trusted network of dealers in the US that he
deals with on a regular basis.
Let me know if you would like any further details.