The joys of buying (and selling) a boat

by Mark Cherrington on 30 Nov 2009 After almost a six month search, Mark Cherrington and his partner finally found the latest boat of their dreams. This article outlines some of the lessons they learnt along the way, not only in hunting out and buying a boat – but also how NOT to sell a boat. Neither have had 20 or 30 year’s experience in buying and selling boats; they are just a couple of people who wanted a nice boat, and many of us can relate to that!

They say that the two best days of your life are the day you buy a boat, and the day you sell it. On that basis, May 15 should have been far and away the best day of our lives.

On that day, we not only bought our latest boat, but also sold our previous one. Somehow it didn’t quite seem like that… Here’s why.

Late last year, we decided we’d like a slightly larger, faster boat. We’d owned Lillian, our Compass 28 for nearly three years.

We were spending a lot of time on her – often overnighting after Friday twilights at Balmain – and getting to take her up and down the coast two to three times a year.

The sleeping quarters were a little cramped and the coastal passage up to Pittwater or Lake Macquarie could be s-l-o-o-o-w.

So we thought we’d start looking. A quick squiz at Boatpoint, Yachthub and some of the magazines indicated there seemed to be plenty of choice in our budget range of $60,000-70,000.

At the same time, we’d slowly start getting Lillian ready for sale, making sure she was well presented and attractive to prospective buyers. But more on that process in the 'selling a boat' section below…

Buying a boat:

Actually, the buying process at first seemed easy – almost too easy.

It being January, we took advantage of our holidays, and started visiting brokers and wannabe ex-boat owners.
Within a couple of days, we’d spotted a boat that fitted our budget and our requirements.

It was a fairly serious racing boat, but it met some of our key criteria: good sails, reasonably new engine, and good condition.

We knew we’d have to spend a bit of money converting it for cruising: putting on a furler, adding lazyjacks, upgrading the sleeping arrangements – but she looked to be a good solid boat, and with a very good reputation.

The broker was great, patiently took us out to have a second and third look at the boat, a special trip to the owner’s to see the sails, and then – with an offer accepted – on a test sail.

Everything was great and it was time for the survey. I met our surveyor, Tony Hearder, of Marinassess, and watched him start his slow, careful inspection. Things were looking pretty good, and after an hour or so, I left him to it – expecting a call in another couple of hours telling us we had a boat.

Sadly, that was not the case. Tony identified a severe structural defect in the boat. It was not serious right now, but needed to be addressed. If not, it would only worsen, and could ultimately make the hull worthless within about 10 years.

That started a few days of calls to our shipwright, the shipwright where the boat had been slipped and the broker – who could see a sale slipping away.

The shipwright in whom I had the most faith, and whom we’d used before – and have great trust in – essentially said he wouldn’t touch it. It was too big a job, he couldn’t give an accurate estimate of the work required, and couldn’t guarantee the problem could be fixed.

That was enough for us. We regretfully asked the broker for our deposit back – minus the slip fees.

So the search began again, and gee, we seemed to be looking at a lot of rubbish. Boats that on paper looked fine turned out to be barely floating hulks, poorly looked after, with bad-quality workmanship (all too often by owners trying to do work beyond their capabilities) and simple neglect.

One boat we particularly remember: the broker dropped us on the boat with a cheery 'see you in half an hour'.

Within 10 seconds, we knew the boat wasn’t for us. The fuel tank cap was missing (and it had been raining heavily only a day or so before) and it failed the 'nose test' - it smelt damp and rank.

We lifted up the bilge covers and were confronted by a bilge full of oily filthy water almost to the sole. That was enough for us, but we had another hour to explore the boat before we finally managed to raise the broker on his mobile to come and pick us up.

We also came to the conclusion that we might have to lift what we were prepared to pay to find the right boat that suited us – particularly after we spotted a boat on Boatpoint that looked as if it might suit us – but up in the $80,000-90,000 price range. We figured we would have to spend the difference anyway to get a boat that didn’t need substantial work.

Again, we had a look over it, then came back for a return visit. This boat was a real racing boat, but with good cruising capabilities. The main downside was the engine; aging and poorly looked after, we knew it needed to be replaced. We never wanted to be in the position where we felt we couldn’t trust our engine.

So we included in our budget provision for a repower, made an offer on that basis and asked for a test sail.
The sail went well and we decided to proceed.

Before the survey, we also took the opportunity to ask our rigger, Joe Walsh, to have a look at the rigging – despite having been assured that it was only about five years old.

Joe called back with some interesting news. The rigging was indeed only about five years old BUT the previous rigger had taken some shortcuts, including using the bottle screws from the earlier rigging. In other words, the wire was new, but not the vital components attaching them to the chainplates.

So, back to the broker to tell him that there’d have to be further renegotiation on the price to take account of the need for rerigging.

Then it was time to meet Tony Hearder again for the survey. Out the boat came, and Tony started going over the hull.
This time it was fairly quick. He spotted numerous small osmosis blisters on the hull.

Then he remembered that he’d actually surveyed this boat five years before, and it had osmosis then – but manifested quite differently. It turned out that the earlier osmosis had been treated – but poorly – and the problem had come back.

We considered our options. Adam, the shipwright, said it was a big job, beyond him. A friend we’d consulted said it was a simple case of 'three strikes and it’s out': engine, rigging and now hull. A call to a couple of the osmosis treatment services revealed a cost of at least $30,000 to repair it.

We half-heartedly offered the broker a revised offer $30,000 less than we’d agreed on. He acted as if he were insulted, so we asked him to return our cheque – again less the slipping fee.

That is one broker we won’t use again, and wouldn’t recommend to anyone. Our view is that he and the owner must have known about the osmosis, and chose not to mention it – letting us go to the trouble and expense of a survey, slip, as well as researching the rig, engine options, etc.

It also turned out the boat had been on the market for well over a year – so presumably other surveyors had picked up the problems as well.

We think this is unacceptable behaviour: other brokers were quite prepared to mention if a boat had an osmosis problem, and have that taken into account in the asking price and negotiations.

So it was back to the drawing board.

I spotted another boat within our (rising) price range: a Van de Stadt 34, based on Lake Macquarie. Only issue was it was not fibreglass; it was a cedar-strip West System epoxy hull. Nothing we knew anything about, but it was timber wasn’t it – subject to rot, high-maintenance, and all those other nasties that cost money or get in the way of sailing time.

However, we started investigating, and got some encouraging reports. Cedar doesn’t rot, the epoxy soaks into the timber and forms a composite product, and the hull is very light and strong.

So we called the broker and arranged to have a look over her. He wasn’t available on the day we made the trip, so we went out with Roger, the owner.

It was obvious he was very proud of her, and very sad to be selling her. He’d spent two years outfitting her for a planned trip to Tasmania: new engine, hot water, including shower (not on our list, but a nice add-on), fridge (same), radar, GPS, wind instruments and Autohelm.

He’d also put on a seriously solid dodger and bimini – all to his own design – giving us excellent protection from the weather and sun, and the ability to almost completely enclose the cockpit at anchor.

She’d been built in Western Australia, and raced and cruised up around to the north of the country. She had a sugar scoop stern with a massive drop down ladder (original owner was a diver, apparently), so getting on board was very easy.

She had the headroom we wanted (we are both tall), a double aft quarter berth with plenty of room, and a large comfortable cabin. We both knew this was the boat.

The rest went pretty smoothly. We made an offer, handed over our deposit and took her for a test sail (very light breeze unfortunately), and arranged for Tony Hearder to do the survey, and for Joe Walsh to look at the rigging. The rigging did need replacing, so we negotiated a reduction for that.

Tony rang on his way back to Sydney with the 'bad news is, you’ve got a boat'.

So we ended up with Windchaser, a boat we’ve been delighted with. Adam our shipwright has helped fix up a few issues, and has readily given us advice on the small simple maintenance jobs we can do ourselves.

We’ve had her re-rigged and made a few minor changes here and there.

For example, she had halogen lighting throughout the cabin. I’m fanatical about saving power, so that’s all been replaced with LEDs.

We’ve also rerouted some of the running rigging lines to bring as much back to the cockpit as possible.

On our wishlist sometime is an anchor winch, but for now we don’t really feel the need.

We love the way she sails. She’s fantastically well-balanced. You have to be very careless for her to round up in a gust, and with the main trimmed properly she’ll keep tracking without a hand on the tiller, even in gusts.

Even when over-powered she’s very easy to sail, a very well-mannered boat. And she doesn’t get osmosis.

Selling Lillian:

We opted to sell Lillian ourselves, rather than through a broker and drop several thousand dollars in commission. We were in no real hurry to sell her, and figured we could do as well as using a broker, given that we used the same websites and classifieds services that brokers were using to advertise the boats on their books.

In addition, we were happy to take potential buyers out for test sails, and handle price negotiations – issues which many sellers prefer to deal with at arm’s length.

Having looked at a lot of boats that you could tell within seconds were no good, we had a pretty good idea of what buyers were looking for in a boat.

Our approach was to look at our boat as if we were buying her, and making her as clean and presentable as possible.

We spent time cleaning her, removing our gear that had built up over three years – enough to fill up half our living room! – and fixing up all the little odd jobs that we’d never quite gotten around to doing.

We also had the advantage of a very active Compass owners’ website (http://groups.msn.com/compass2829yachts), where there’d been a number of message posts outlining what to look for when buying a Compass 28.

We went through the checklists provided on the site, and did our best to ensure that we had dealt with all the issues, or that none of them applied to Lillian.

We also knew that she was a very good example of a Compass 28, and therefore we could command a good price for her – which we used to set our asking price ($35,000).

She was in close to original condition (for a 30 year old boat), with minimal bodgy owner additions, she had good sails, a reasonable engine, and she was very clean and dry inside.

We also knew she would pass the 'nose' test: anyone coming on board her, even if she’d been closed up for a few weeks, wouldn’t be assailed with that unpleasant damp boat smell that we’d come to know so well over the previous few months.

Once we’d had our offer for Windchaser accepted, and she’d passed her survey, we put Lillian on the market. We advertised her on two website classified sites (Boatpoint and Yachthub), as well as in Trader Boat, Afloat and The Sydney Morning Herald.

I mention these as it was interesting to track responses over the following weeks and even months. We had a number of calls, with empty promises to call back. But we were also getting calls a couple of months after she’d been sold.

For us, the most effective was Boatpoint, but we also got a call from our single advert in The Sydney Morning Herald (two weeks later!) and a number of calls from Afloat up to two months after our ad last appeared.

In the end, the first person (and only) to look at her called back with an offer a day or so later – which we accepted.

Coincidentally, she passed her survey on the same day that Windchaser passed hers – saving us the hassle of having to organise two moorings back in Sydney, and allowing us to bring our new boat down from Lake Macquarie on the very same weekend that Lillian headed for her new home in Pittwater.

A nice piece of synchronicity for us.

So, as a result of this experience, here are my...

Buying tips: Before you go aboard

1.Do your homework. Decide on what sort of boat you really want and what your budget is.

2.Decide if you have an 'elastic' budget or you have an absolute maximum. You may end up with a choice between a boat that needs money spent, but is cheaper, or one that is nearly right for you as-is.

3.Get to know the online classified sites, Boatpoint and Yachthub. These are the most up-to-date ways of seeing what boats have come on the market, and as a rule are inexpensive enough that boats will stay there until sold – assuming the seller is serious. They are also easier to use than wading through 500-page classified advertising magazines (and boats appear online sooner than in print).

4.When you find a boat or boats that you think may suit you, do more research. Find out if there’s an owners’ association or website which can give you tips and hints on what to look for. Talk to other sailors or anyone who may know something about the type, make or construction technique of the boat you are looking at. Use Google to do more research.

5.Find a good surveyor (you won’t get insurance cover without a survey). Actually, first find a good shipwright and boatyard (assuming you’re going to slip her regularly, you’ll need a boatyard) – and develop a good relationship with them. They appreciate loyalty and prompt payment as much as any business, and a good one will repay your loyalty with service, advice and assistance. Then get your shipwright to recommend a good surveyor – they tend to know who the really good ones are. A broker may not be quite so keen for you to find a really thorough surveyor!

6.Make sure your surveyor is competent to assess the engine as well as the boat itself (most are, but you should check). You may like to think about getting a diesel mechanic to assess the engine.

Looking at boats:

1.It’s easy to waste money on surveyors, if the boat comes up a dud (we know from experience!). So when you get on a boat, act like a surveyor and check out as much as you can – particularly if you think you’re interested – to see if it’s worth going the next step.

2.Do your own mini survey as you look over the boat; divide it into key elements, such as rigging, sails, hull, engine, deck, fittings, etc. Have a look at the deck, hulls, sails, rigging, mast, boom, fittings, etc. Do they look old and crappy, or are they in reasonable condition? You can get an idea of sail condition from the feel of the cloth, look for signs of corrosion around mast and boom fittings, and so on. Make notes for later comparison.

3.Watch out for incompetent DIY jobs.

4.Take photos of everything, so you can remember what they look like if you want a second look, or when comparing different boats later on. Use the macro feature on your camera for good quality close-ups (handy for those hidden parts you can’t see easily as well – like keel bolts or chainplates, for example).

5.Look for things that are wrong. You’ll be paying a surveyor several hundred dollars to do this, so the more you know about, the better chance you’ll have of avoiding a survey that’s going to tell you this boat’s not for you.

6.Use your nose! As soon as you enter the cabin, start sniffing; a damp smell’s going to tell you you may be facing a never-ending battle with mould and mildew, or clothes and bedding that are never dry.

7.Check expensive things, such as the engine (even on quite a small yacht, you won’t get much change out of $15,000 if a new diesel engine’s in order). Is it clean, or greasy and rusty? Does it have a least two fuel filters? What’s access like? How accessible is the fuel tank? Can you see inside the tank, and if so how clean is the fuel?

8.Start tallying up what you may have to spend to bring the boat up to a condition you are happy with. It may be a 'bargain' price, but the spend needed to get her up to scratch may put her beyond your budget. If you need new rigging, new sails, new engine, etc you may quickly end up with a boat on which you’ve spent far more than she is worth… If the asking price doesn’t take these into account, it’s probably time to move on.

9.Assume you will have to spend some money. For example, generally insurers won’t cover rigging over about seven years old (and surveyors will put in caveats about rigging once it gets to this age). No matter what the owner tells you, unless the rigging is less than five years old (with receipts to prove it), assume re-rigging is coming up. Even if it’s less than five years old, get a rigger to have a look at it.

10.Don’t err on the side of optimism. Unless you get firm quotes for 'repair' jobs, assume they’ll be more, sometimes significantly more, than you expect. Structural issues should probably be deal-breakers, unless you have a lot of spare time and know what you are doing, or are happy to spend a lot of money.

11.The 'test sail' can be a tricky area to negotiate. We were determined that we wanted to test boats in at least 20 knots of breeze, to get an idea of how they handled under a bit of pressure. For one reason or another, we never managed it. There’s no easy answers here, and until you get a boat out in the ocean, with significant breeze and swells, you won’t really know how she handles when conditions are challenging. Use the test sail to try out the various systems: hoisting sails, reefing, dropping them, furling, etc, and ensure you understand them. Also check out performance and handling under motor. Don’t forget to try reversing and see how manoeuvrable she is. You may well find you need some lessons and/or a lot of practice!

12.Try not to fall in love (with a boat, that is). Stay as dispassionate as you can for as long as you can; there’s plenty more boats out there – and just keep reminding yourselves of that.

13.Always be prepared to walk away. If your surveyor identifies issues with the boat, and the seller or broker won’t drop the price sufficiently to take them into account, move on. Once you’ve paid for the boat, those problems and issues become yours.

14.Remember, somewhere there’s a boat out there with your name on it! Keep looking, and don’t get disheartened. Don’t feel the need to rush into a purchase; you could be stuck with a dud boat for a lot longer than you spend looking for the right one. The old cliché still holds true: if you can, buy someone’s dream, not their nightmare.

Selling your boat:

1.As a rule, buying a boat is generally easier than selling one – especially with the current rather uncertain economic climate. Having said that, a boat that’s in good condition, and is a popular, well-recognised class will sell faster than one in poor condition. If you buy before you sell, you’ll need to be prepared to carry the cost of two boats, and to have an extra mooring or marina berth for both boats – perhaps for quite a while.

2.Do some research, so you know what your boat’s worth. Look at asking prices for others of the same class, and try to compare them with yours. Try to check out other yachts in your class if you can (most owners are happy to compare boats, see what others have done).

3.Once she’s on the market, keep her as well-presented as you can. This includes keeping timbers well oiled, decks cleaned, not too much junk inside, engine cleaned (and serviced, so she starts first time – not a good look if she fails at this), clean and dry as possible inside.

4.Look at her critically, as if you were the buyer. What issues might a prospective buyer use to knock you down on price, or move onto another boat? Which ones are you prepared to fix before you put her on the market – or would you be prepared to address in return for a firm offer?

5.Be flexible. There’s plenty more boats out there, so if yours is overpriced, or you’re not prepared to negotiate on certain issues (overdue re-rig, engine on its last legs, etc), prospective buyers will move on.

6.How quickly do you want to sell her? Unused boats deteriorate faster than those that are sailed regularly. Be sure you don’t price her so high that she’ll take months or years to sell, especially if you are no longer sailing her. On the other hand, if you know and love the boat, and want to keep sailing her until she sells, you may be more justified in holding out for what you feel she is worth.The joys of buying (and selling) a yacht
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Letter from Reader:
Sender: Myles Wenban

Message: Hi Guys
That is one of the BEST most INFORMATIVE articles on buying and selling a yacht that I have read.
Thanks for that
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