Cheap boats. The end is nigh, The Cheap Boat Thread

[NotBirdseye]

I hope that bus takes a ferry...

 

[dgadee]

I hope that bus takes a ferry...

From Newcastle you need to come via Ballynahinch.

 

[yoda]

Pride.

Not at all! Just joking so others realise they don't have to spend a fortune on marina berths. If I ever need a berth in your neck of the woods I will look you up.

Yoda

 

[NotBirdseye]

Kek you and me both! I've got a few spots I can berth at but I will be on the hunt for low cost no frills options myself soon enough!

 

[doug748]

Grand Vancouver 27 asking under 13k:

Twin keel Hunter Horizon 26 for sale

An attractive package, lots of good gear. Mast in tabernacle, 4ft 6in draught, take it down the French canals or round Cape Horn. If you got it for 10k, you stole it.

Mend the deck next winter or chip it up sometime/never. How sensible it is to have the heads right forward in a small boat.

.

 

[[165264]]

Keep crying - sorry, trying

And the beer's less than half that in the club bar (when it was open)

Somewhere around Chichester Harbour I'd guess? I'm not envious though, as I currently pay nothing

 

[[165264]]

This has been coming for a long time. The end point is that second hand boats are essentially free but maintenance and mooring costs as expensive as if the boats were 100k plus in value.
That’s fine by me and the biggest issue will be marketing your free boat against all the competition so old rules about well maintained and not too quirky remain just the same as ever.

Just the same as pipe organs for churches.

 

[[165264]]

Good job there's a girt great lump of lead holding it down, or it would have taken off!

Great fun when you're young and invincible, but a gybe like that would be grounds, if not for divorce, at the very least, for a lifetime of solo sailing ?

Now there's an idea!

 

[Stemar]

Somewhere around Chichester Harbour I'd guess? I'm not envious though, as I currently pay nothing

Hardway, in Portsmouth Harbour

 

[[165264]]

I've never been one to follow the logic that if you have to ask the price then you can't afford it... though I have heard the saying many times over the years in particular regards to boating. A bit of a shame as boats are cheaper than some think. I mean they're not an investment for sure, definitely an expense item but that's no excuse not to ask the price, in fact that's just good financial sense at making your money work harder. I think everyone will welcome cheaper marine prices but we have to be careful as I'm not sure that all marinas over charge. I mean some are in high demand so the prices are bumped but others just have high mainetenance costs and could go insolvent if prices drop too much.

Quite- and then they will be lost forever. If they can't make it as a marina, so many of them will become housing, particularly here in the south. Can you imagine if, say, one of the marinas at the top of the Hamble went bust? Waterside flats all over the place at large prices and large profits for the owners/receivers I'd guess.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

Quite- and then they will be lost forever. If they can't make it as a marina, so many of them will become housing, particularly here in the south.

That was the fear all along the eastern seaboard of the States , especially in Long Island Sound, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, south Florida, etc. Selling the land for condos would realise far more return than would ever be earn't from a marina let alone a boatyard. But the infrastructure would then slowly vanish for a activity that is financially important for many States or cities. So the solution was to 'zone' marine business land with a unique 'M' categorisation and then make it almost impossible to get a 'change of use' of land so designated. Pressure from developers disappeared overnight and boatyards were only as valuable as the marine business they could support.

All very worthy and commendable. Unless you owned a boatyard, part of which was some elevated land on a bluff with spectacular views out over a salt marsh and the setting sun.

 

[obmij]

All very worthy and commendable. Unless you owned a boatyard, part of which was some elevated land on a bluff with spectacular views out over a salt marsh and the setting sun.

Ouch..

 

[doug748]

Here is a handy Rustler 31 asking well under 10k:

Rustler 31 For Sale - £8,995

Dodgy deck but no clear sign that is has been screwed down.

 

[Seven Spades]

A massive part of the problem with this thread is demographics. Young people are not good at privation. They want 36 feet as a minimum. There was a time in the early-mid 00's when Bavaria were turning out Bav34's and 36's for around £50,000. There are a lot of these boats and their contemporaries available and they too will depress the prices of older small boats.

Moving on today the volume of new boats being sold is tiny but then again so is demand, in the UK few under 40 have disposable income to buy, own and maintain a boat. However has the 00's boats work their way out of the system, the numbers of new boats is probably in balance with demand for used second hand boat and I expect newish boats to retain their value well.

 

[jac]

A massive part of the problem with this thread is demographics. Young people are not good at privation. They want 36 feet as a minimum. There was a time in the early-mid 00's when Bavaria were turning out Bav34's and 36's for around £50,000. There are a lot of these boats and their contemporaries available and they too will depress the prices of older small boats.

Moving on today the volume of new boats being sold is tiny but then again so is demand, in the UK few under 40 have disposable income to buy, own and maintain a boat. However has the 00's boats work their way out of the system, the numbers of new boats is probably in balance with demand for used second hand boat and I expect newish boats to retain their value well.

But that assumes that the number of people actively wanting to buy a boat remains in balance with boats for sale.

As the other thread on boat scrap page explores, the bottom of the market is not really reducing in supply. If anything, it’s expanding as there are few old boats being disposed of. Add in demographics of the baby boomers moving into retirement and you have a demand fall as well. As long as you have boats On the market, only a few years older than your current target purchase but bigger, better equipped etc (just older) then there will be that tension between buying say a 10 year old 34 footer and a 20 year old 37 footer etc.

until their is a credible scheme to remove boats from the bottom of the market, there will always be that downward pull on prices.

 

[wombat88]

Many of us will have gone through our boating lives buying boats and selling them for roughly what we paid for them. I guess we still expect to do so and will continue in this vein until a year or two has passed and there are no takers.

However, it seems to me that in the world of nasty smelly old motor boats prices seem to hold their own.

 

[Zagato]

Well I was following Marieholm International Folk Boats during lockdown (Marieholm commissioned Tord Sunden who created the original Folkboat to design an improved version in GRP in 1966). As soon as lockdown phycologically ended for some a couple of weeks ago three were sold from the listings. Prices ranged from 6-10K and they all could have done with work! One was actually flipped, it was listed on EBay a year or two ago for 5K with a trailer, the new seller was asking £8750 with the trailer being extra!

I found a really nice example that was not advertised nationally but pointed out to me by a forum member that had a 5 year old Beta Engine, 5 year old Sanders sails, standing rigging etc and replaced teak interior for 6K. I snapped it up two days ago and it is now stored in a Devon Boatyard awaiting my TLC. I can keep it at home on a trailer as it is only 2.5 tonnes and it will cost me less than £500 to put her on a mooring in Chi Harbour. Job done and shows the market is still strong for respected Boat designs, that are simple, fun and cheap to keep. They do have a strong world following however as they are superb sailers with a 58% ballast ratio and a big owners association, monthly magazine/forum etc and were designed as a cruiser and one design racer so attract a range of buyers. Very pretty Boat to boot.

The ugly old AWB's are suffering, the new generation don,t want old, hideous, smelly boats, that perhaps some see with rose tinted glasses as their father had one, they would rather charter something fun, fast or with mod cons....

 

[jamie N]

Sincerely, good luck and good choice of boat; albeit it's a plastic one
I'm not in the market for a new boat, but would love to be a punter for a boat right now, as I'm convinced that all boats up for sale are worthless, until someone puts in an offer. Until that point, they're consuming money and losing value.
One of the reasons that I'm not after any other boat is the profound loyalty that I feel for my own boat; it'd be a betrayal, but I'd still like a 42' with a shower and heating and a windlass and, and....
My BinL does up houses on the Western Isles, and has no shyness in approaching the owner of any property that's up for sale and offering £5K; never more than that. When the owner refuses, he doesn't take offence, and tells him that the offer's on the table, and if he changes his mind......?
Quite often, the property does become his, he does it up and 'recycles it'.

 

[[159032]]

That would be fine if you got £50 to scrap them but it’s the opposite- you are giving away a huge costly liability.

Someone wanted to give me a 27ft yacht on a mooring. Boat was not in good nick, mooring fee was about to be due, there was no cradle or trailer for it.
Standing costs would have made it a money pit, even before trying to cut off the old running rigging and stop the leak.

 

[Zagato]

Sincerely, good luck and good choice of boat; albeit it's a plastic one

Thanks, and in traditional Folkboat style they still leak but through the top rather than through the bottom!