I first met Fred Booth in February 1992. He couldn't decide whether to buy a factory demo Nor'Sea 27 or a new Nor'Sea 27. He decided to try and purchase the demo boat and then proceeded to write me this bad check for $30,000.
Here's the check:

Now that put a damper on the evenings Festivities   :-)

See Boat Building Basics

Note: Tom Gannon of Practical Sailor never mentioned the bad check. (surprise-surprise)

Would a bad check for $30,000 put a dent in your business?

Eventually Fred did make the check good and we started to prepare the boat. He ordered a custom dodger for it and came out to spend a few nights on her at Dana Point harbor.

One morning, after spending the night, the Harbor Patrol pulled up next to the boat, inquiring from Fred, as to why the hull number was scratched out. (looked like someone had taken a screwdriver or a wood chisel and just gouged out the number).

Fred called me and I rushed down to the Harbor. I made some explanation to the Harbor patrol that we had been having some vandalism and I would restore the damage back to original.

Eventually I  ended up removing the boat back to the factory and having repairs done at our paint (gelcoat) shop.

Dana Point Harbor has almost 3,000 boats and for the Harbor Patrol to jump in their boat and make a beeline directly to our Nor'Sea 27, more than a mile away, to observe a quarter-inch little number on the stern, tells me that someone had vandalized our boat and then phoned the Harbor Patrol to check us out. No one noticed the damage earlier and the boat was in normal condition a few days before.

Many things were happening during that time, that indicate some inside employees were not working in our companies best interest.

Besides the boat vandalism just described...we had:

A. Someone had broken the plate glass window at our 23,000 square foot building and made off with our entire computer system, including all the diskettes that held our parts and inventory information. Whoever took the Computer went out of his way to steal these diskettes that were stored in a separate area from the computer. No back up was available and this made it impossible to track parts and inventory. (Later, after we moved, two of our former employee's called me and said who did it and why. We just can't prove it)

B. We were launching Al Stevens new Nor'Sea 27  and we had just launched the boat in Dana Point Harbor. I motored the boat over to the Dana Shipyard and tied her up to begin getting her ready for sea. We had a few days work on the boat, tweaking the radar, doing rigging work, setting up the Monitor Wind vane, etc.

Suddenly 3 people in suits appeared on the dock. They had cameras and were clicking away. They approached Al Stevens asking who's boat it was and how much did he pay for it. These were people from the State of California who were looking for sales tax revenue on Al Stevens boat. They told Al that someone had called and they had driven in from Santa Ana to inspect this phone tip on a new boat being delivered.

Al lost his temper and many cuss-words were flying..... Al and I had planned an offshore delivery, which is perfectly legal and other builders like Pacific Seacraft do it every week. Al was a legal Arizona resident and after showing the tax boys his drivers license, informed them that he was going to take delivery of his new boat offshore.

Later the following week, I sailed Al's new Nor'Sea 27 six miles off the California coast. Al followed me in another Nor'Sea 27. After video-taping the GPS to prove we were in international waters, Al handed me the final check and I gave him the paperwork that made the boat his. We traded boats mid-ocean. Shook hands and He sailed south for Ensenada, Mexico to spend 91 days at the nice Marina that is famous for offshore delivery boats. (chock full of new boats waiting for the 91st day).

The point is that someone had intentionally tried to cause problems for our company. Someone who knew our schedule that day.

C. Parts and materials were constantly being stolen out of our factory. Some of it by those in charge. Some by regular employees.

D. tools, hardware and equipment were suddenly developing legs to walk out of our factory. Big money items. Ask what happened and you get a shrug.

Back to Fred Booth. A family member of his got ill and he decided to sell the boat. So we kept it at the shop and after a period of time (there was a recession and boat sales were flat) Fred decided to take a new boat instead. He did drop his lawsuit.