How To Buy A Used Sailboat – Step 1 How Will You Use Your Sailboat?

 Last week, I blogged that I would share my experience buying a used sailboat. One of the things that always surprises me is how many experienced sailors bought their first boat on a whim, without thinking through how they were going to use her. For many this worked out well and many years later they are still sailing the same boat and speak of her lovingly. Just as many have lived to regret their impulse and found themselves selling their boat at a big loss within a few years or hung on for longer and sailed less every year.

The key point is that you cannot spend too much time considering how you will use your sailboat. If you live and sail in an area known for light and moderate winds, there’s no point in buying a boat built to cross oceans because you might, maybe, possibly at some point fulfill the dream you haven’t shared with your spouse, that someday, maybe, possibly, you might do a circumnavigation.

Equally, buying a racing boat is not for the faint of heart. Racing is an incredible experience but takes real commitment. You need to be really sure that’s the type of sailing you want to do.

For simplicity’s sake, we asked ourselves the following questions (BIG CAVEAT – This isn’t a relevant set of questions if you are in the market for a dinghy):

1. Where are you going to doing most of your sailing? In our case we will be doing 90% of our sailing on Raritan Bay where the conditions are moderate for 3-4 months and light for 2 so anything but a blue-water boat would work. If you sail in an area with high winds like San Francisco you need a boat that will be comfortable in heavy air. If you will be sailing on a small lake, a light day-sailer might be the solution. If you plan to live-aboard and cruise the Caribbean, you probably want a blue-water boat. The important thing is to buy a boat for where you will be doing most of your sailing. This seems self-evident but I have seen so many people screw this up and end up with a boat they thought was the boat of their dreams but unsuitable for where they sail 90% of the time.

• How much are you going to sail? We sail most weekends between April and November and plan to cruise for a few weeks a year so we think of our boat as a second home. If you can only sail 2-3 weeks a year, you might be better off chartering or going the fractional ownership route. We saw several boats when we were out shopping, that the owners had only sailed a few weeks of the year. The rest of the time she sat on the hard and showed it. They were sad hulks in need of love and unlikely to be sold.
• Racer, cruiser, racer/cruiser, blue-water? This was the question we went back and forth on for quite some time. I enjoy racing but don’t live for it and don’t have enough time to really commit to it. We flirted with a racer/cruiser but when we really thought about it, we realized that we were happier racing on other people’s boats and cruising our own. We have dreams of crossing Oceans and cruising the Islands but that’s a long way off so a blue-water boat felt like more than we needed. (Note: If you are considering a racing boat, a whole bunch of different questions kick in that I won’t go into here but if anyone wants to write a guest posts just email me).
• Who’s going to be sailing with you? I know a guy who bought a beautiful, new 50′ yacht and tricked her out for the whole family to vacation on. Problem is his wife gets seasick looking at photos of the boat. I don’t think he sails as much as he would like. Hope is not a strategy, you need to be sure about who will be sailing with you. Another guy I know, knew that he would be sailing alone as the kids are grown and his wife is not keen. He bought a lovely 30′ ketch that he singlehands happily. In our case, we both love to cruise but only one of us likes to race and our son isn’t enthusiastic about either. For these reasons we waited till our son had gone off to college to buy the boat of our dreams and it was a boat we both wanted.
• How long will you own her?  Our first two boats we’re weekenders that we didn’t think we would own for more than 3 years.We didn’t sweat the decision to buy and didn’t spend much money on either boat. We loved both boats for what they were and sailed them happily for 3 years. We plan to own our new boat for 10-15 years and feel she will accommodate everything we may do in that time-frame. Given that we planned to own her for that long we have been much more careful in deciding on the right boat for us. It’s a long time to live with regret. If you plan to own your boat for a while, take the time to make a very considered purchase. Take the advice the best broker we spoke gave us: Be patient.
• Will you be able to sell her later? Please note that I have not once used the word investment. A boat is not an investment. It’s worth less than you paid for on the second you sign the purchase agreement, unless you’re very lucky. My advice is to research the resale values of older models of the boats you are interested in. You will then get a sense of future depreciation. Some boats surprisingly depreciate at a much slower rate as they get older. Newer boats tend to depreciate quicker. What you get for her later will largely depend on how well you maintain her. When it came to make a decision between a handful of boats on the market, we aggresively pursued the one that had been cared for the best.
• How much work will you do on the boat yourself? Unless you like working on boats more than you like sailing, don’t buy a “project”. Firstly, you will be frustrated about how much needs to be done, you will be more likely to cut corners or pay a frightening amount to the yard to get the boat in good enough shape to sail. I am confident in doing most cosmetic things and a few minor mechanical things but I am not re-wiring anything, rebuilding any engines or doing anything to wood other than oiling it. There are some who can’t wait for Fall to get the boat up on stands and start work. If that’s you, God bless you and you will be blessed with many boats to chose from. If that’s not you, buy with your brain not your heart.
• How much boat can you afford?  This is clearly a very important question but I put this last for a reason: In this market, you can afford quite a lot, so my advice is don’t take shortcuts on the other questions before fixating on a budget. In our case we waited till we could afford the boat we wanted and we waited for 20 years because of this and played around with smaller boats and chartered till then. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you spend, if you buy the wrong boat, you will regret your purchase whether it’s a 5 year old 40′ Morris or a 30 year old 30′ Morgan.

I have probably missed a bunch of questions and would welcome any other suggestions.

Next week, how to develop a long list – It’s time to dream!