Generally the last two months life has been easy going, simple and lacking drama. Which has been quite nice. I’ve struggled a bit with motivation to do anything active due to getting used to a Florida summer. Humid of course, but it’s also rained a lot more than thought it did. There is a thunderstorm practically every day. I have an Arizona mentality of “I’ll wait to go for that walk until it’s sunny tomorrow” that I’m having to break.
Michelle and I have sporadically continued to plan and organize for our trip to Patagonia and Antarctica and that’s more or less ready to go.
My sister Tabitha and her daughter Bella visited for a couple of days. Short, but nice. Bella is going to UCF, so was here to do orientation. We went to a zoo. One different from the one I went to in April and so I got a couple of nice photos. Tab and I took a nice walk and had lunch as well.
…and that’s about all I’ve done and it’s been nice.
Ship update wise. There have been delays. This has upset a few people, but to me it’s completely expected. It’s a very complicated endeavor, one that’s hardly ever been done before, by a company never having done this, being affected by a war and legalities. Storylines, the company, also has to evolve from a idea and marketing company to a ship building company and then into a ship management company. It’s a lot.
Some “tip of the iceberg” things…..or should I not use that term? 🙂
First, the initial ownership model was the ship would be owned by a fund. A fund the residents all invested into. The fund would then pay Storylines for building and managing the ship. This kept the ownership in the hands of the residences and seemed like a good method to me.
Unfortunately it ran into regulatory problems. I don’t know the exact details, but I know it became required to only allow “accredited investors” or “sophisticated investors”. These are SEC rules for what kind of investments you are allowed to participate in based upon your income or wealth. While this was not a problem for the majority of the residents, it did cut off a number of people. There were also some other regulatory issues I’m not privy too.
Storylines could have handled those residences ownership by leases other some other method. However, I believe the whole idea was nixed because that didn’t fit in with the community idea. It would have setup a different class of owners.
Second, the consequences of the war in Ukraine have prolonged the recovery of the shipyard. While it did not directly affect us. They lost funding of two major projects because those projects happened to be funded by loans from Russian banks. They have narrowly avoided bankruptcy and had a number of other related problems. They are recovering and getting back on track, but it’s slowed things down.
The good news is that the all important Contract that defines our ownership, delivery dates and all that has been edited for a new way and formalized. It has been shared with a focus group of owners as well as the lawyer group that a number(50 as of now) of owners, including me, have hired to review it. While I’ve not seen the Contract, I have seen some of the lawyers responses and that’s been informative. It’s quite the thing and I’m glad I decided to join the group. I’m sure I’d never think of a lot of the possibilities that should be such a complicated contract. All meaning that I’ll probably see this Contract before long. It’s going to be released in small groups so Storylines can manage it, but soon….
The other good news is that once this Contract is signed and the first real payment of it is completed. Ship construction will start. It in fact must or the shipyard contract is in breach. Because of the potential problems at the initial shipyard, Storylines now has backup shipyards in play. So significant pre-building delays are less likely. Over all though, all of this has only led to about 6 months delay, which I don’t think is bad for a project like this.
Lastly, Storylines has a monthly update meeting. Normally virtually. However, for July it’s in person as well. It’s in Newport Beach, CA and I’m headed there this weekend. I see this is a good opportunity to meet both Storylines people in person as well as a lot of future neighbors before signing a contract and starting payments. So far I’ve paid nothing but a holding fee, so I’m not fully committed. Which, has been good, that’s given me more than a year to really think about the life I may live in a few years….
The next blog will be about my trip to California and how this meeting goes…..