Ask A Maritime Attorney: Is the seller legally allowed to keep the deposit if the buyer backs out of the purchase agreement after the inspection period but without citing a specific defect?

Question:   ​We recently entered into a written agreement with a private party to purchase a boat.  The “agreement” was a generic purchase agreement that the seller found online, and we realize now that it was missing a lot of terms that are important for a boat purchase.  We left a deposit check with the seller, and the agreement stated that the check would not be cashed for at least four days, which allowed us time to inspect the boat and confirm that the boat was acceptable to us.  We are looking for a liveaboard boat, and after talking with some knowledgeable people, we decided the boat was not for us.  We called and emailed the seller one day after signing the purchase agreement to advise him that we were no longer interested in the boat.  Unfortunately, he has refused to return our deposit, claiming that our reason for rejecting the boat needs to be better than “it is just not for us.”  Is he correct?  Have we lost our deposit?     Answer:   ​Our reader may learn the hard way that ambiguity in a written agreement often leads to litigation. The language of an agreement for the purchase and sale of a yacht provides a...