Can I buy a boat across the world and sail it home safely?

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AlmaCSylvester

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I have a "pie in the sky" dream (one I like to think about but am unlikely to ever do for those who have never heard the expression).

1. Take 6 months or a year off work.
2. Buy a sailing boat in some part of the world experiencing financial hardship right now.
3. Fix up and sail boat back home to Australia.
4. Have adventures.
5. Either sell or keep boat.

I first heard about someone doing this during the GFC in the US a few years ago, but another current candidate would be Greece.

I was a hotshot skiff sailor as a teenager. Some years after that I had 3 years training and working with the local volunteer sea rescue every weekend. I think my boatcraft, navigation, and safety awareness would be pretty good, and hopefully I havn't forgotten how to sail.

Is this plausible? practical? possible? How hard is it to buy a boat that won't sink under me in the middle of the ocean? Am I going to be shot by Nigerian pirates?

It sure would be the adventure of a lifetime. What do you think? Has anyone done this?
 
Welcome.

Perfectly feasible to buy a good well found boat in Greece - but don't think it will be "cheap" enough to make any money on it. Possible to sail back to OZ, although the short route through the Suez canal is perhaps not the safest place at the moment, so your one year time scale is perhaps unrealistic. Is it an adventure? - yes. Is it possible with your limited experience? - you don't know until you try.

One boring issue you will need to investigate is whether you will be allowed to import a European boat into OZ, and f so what duty etc applies.
 
Many yachts sail around the world every year so buying boat somewhere and sailing to Australia is feasible. However they have generally sailed (say) hundred mile passages before setting of which we did before going long distance sailing. Also fixing a time frame is not really feasible there can be weather, breakages and waiting for spares holdups, all of which we had. Also you need a boat that will handle strong winds on passage which won't be cheap.

It is doable but I'd suggest you need to get some offshore experience, think carefully about what yacht to buy and have flexible timing.
 
Perfectly feasible and I know of a number of people who have done just the same thing- the last who went to America and bought a 45' yacht and sailed her back across the Atlantic. He's still living off the pints he gets when recounting his tales of woe (and joy)! Unfortunately, that is about all he is making from it, but hey oh!
 
Shane Acton proved it's possible without a great deal of sailing experience. That doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. There's a world of difference between sailing a high performance dinghy for a couple of hours and living aboard a vessel for weeks on end passage making. Go crusing first.
 
Yep. But. Once you get it here you will have customs people tell you what the boat is worth in the Australian market. NOT what you paid for it. Then you will pay import duty on that amount. Then you will pay GST (VAT in disguise). Then you will be told what modifications need to be made to make it suitable for local compliance (gas/ electrics etc). I have looked into this and it all works out fine as long as you keep on sailing and go past Australia. NZ will be even tougher. All part of protecting the local boatbuilders and associated businesses. You can have it shipped on a boatboat for about $38k. (If you provide the shipping cradle)
 
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Buying a boat a long way away presents its own problems.

There could be a lot of travel involved scouring the world for an ideal boat. I eventually bought my boat unseen as it was cheaper to pay for a survey than to see it myself, and the ones I'd previously seen failed at the survey. It all went surprisingly well.

A lot of boats in Greece are ex charter, and the prices are more reflective of that, than Greece's economic plight. I'm not saying they're all bad, but the bargains may be dubious. The Caribbean and South Pacific seem to offer better bargains, to me, though locals may know why.

I wouldn't want to disappear out of sight of the chandlers until I'd spent a lot of time sailing the boat. Small niggles take on a much bigger significance out of range of help. There's an abandoned Swan 48 drifting round the North Atlantic, because the batteries went flat, for instance.
 
sighmoon said:
(snip) There's an abandoned Swan 48 drifting round the North Atlantic, because the batteries went flat, for instance.
Click to expand...

Jeez, that's unbelievable! My boat sails quite well with flat batteries I have found. I might struggle to start the engine, but I can still sail it fine & with dead reckoning & a compass I could probably find my way to one side or the other of the Atlantic. There's usually plenty of rain in the Atlantic so that the lack of a water maker shouldn't be an issue, so what was the game stopper that depended on battery power?
 
I think one of the big time killers is going to be the prep of the boat. If you buy abroad then you are likely to need to do a bit of work on the boat to make it sea-worthy for the trip home. That is going to cost time and money. You need to decide how much your time is worth or if you feel you would enjoy spending the time in doing a boat up.
 
The secret is to look for a boat in places like the Gibraltar or the Canaries. Sometimes people have a change of plan (heart?) when faced with the next leg of their dream, and are keen to sell boats that they've already spent time and a lot of money preparing. Don't buy in places like Greece because they tend to be either ex-charter or when people have come to the end of their retirement cruise and the boats (and the owners) are tired and worn out.

With care you can also find couples selling up in the UK. Generally if they've brought the boat back to the UK and are selling it all found, you can see that they've been more conscientious about maintenance that people who have just fizzled out in some bar in the Med. I've seen two larger Rivals sold in the UK this year that were truly 'step aboard' and go.

The other place is Canada and the northern states in the USA. Lot's of professional couples take a year sabbatical to do the 'snowbird circuit' down to the Bahamas in winter and back the following summer via New England. Many of these couples / families totally over prepare and after the year many sell the boats on. They also tend to favour heavy, full keeled boats such as Baba, Hans Christian, etc that would easily take you to Australia. (Boats in Florida tend to be cheap, but most have been used as floating beer coolers and are neglected and sun knackered).

Finally if you want to sell your boat when you arrive back in Australia, make sure you buy a boat that is well known there and fetches a decent price. 'Unknown' boats never sell well. The ideal would be to find a boat well known in Australia but unknown in the States; I've seen a unappreciated (but beautifully maintained and equipped) Salar 40 go for only about $20,000 in Annapolis, that wouldl sell for five times (+) that in Australia where the market for them is strong.
 
Go onto YouTube and look at the excellent movies called Untie The Lines by white spot pirates. A young sailor buys a boat in panama and does it up. Inspiring stuff!
 
Searush said:
Jeez, that's unbelievable! My boat sails quite well with flat batteries I have found. I might struggle to start the engine, but I can still sail it fine & with dead reckoning & a compass I could probably find my way to one side or the other of the Atlantic. There's usually plenty of rain in the Atlantic so that the lack of a water maker shouldn't be an issue, so what was the game stopper that depended on battery power?
Click to expand...

The cooker used mains for ignition, so living on cold food in freezing conditions, crew morale was very low. And then they lost the plotter, and the iPad with Navionics. Then came a horrendous storm.

Full story:
http://afloat.ie/blogs/sailing-satu...e-rescue-of-the-crew-of-the-swan-48-wolfhound

The interesting bit is near the bottom. Skim reading it now, it seems grungy fuel may have been the first cause in the cascade of problems - common enough with a boat that's been left standing a while.
 
We sailed to Australia and sold our boat there a couple of years ago: a good seller's market so no problems on that score.

While your proposal is quite do-able your time scale is overambitious if you are thinking of starting in Europe, as most replies so far seem to assume. Firstly, as KellysEye and Pmagowan warn, you need time to come to terms with a boat you buy. If you buy an oldish blue water cruiser in Europe there will be issues that need to be sorted before it can be sailed across an ocean. There is nothing so calculated to ruin the experience of long-distance cruising as a yacht that is badly set up, keeps going wrong, or gets stuck way beyond the ready availability of spares. Not all of these issues will be immediately apparent (however good your surveyor) and you ought to allow some months initially getting to know the yacht properly and undertaking practice passages, in an area where problems can be readily fixed.

Secondly, although it is possible to sail to Australia from Europe in a year, leaving Europe in November, transversing Panama in March, and arriving in Queensland in October, you'd have to count on no major holdups and allowing precious little time for stopping at places en route, so the adventures you hope for will be limited. What is the point of rushing?

For a shorter passage that could be achieved in six months consider a Pacific crossing from California (try San Diego), or alternatively, a passage from Thailand to Australia through Indonesia. There are plenty of cheap ocean cruisers for sale in Thailand (try Phuket) now that the Red Sea route is closed, but the crossing to Australia will be against the prevailing wind.
 
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