Depreciation of second-hand yachts

I am glad someone was prepared to prick traditionalist bubble, these vessels are not beyond reproach. Despite the outline design qualities, individual yachts on the market come with specific and costly problems of old age. Unless dealt with the problems render a particular boat less suitable for sea than some bulbous new Bavaria.

There is one cherished old British design with a flimsy deck moulding, bad osmosis record and a mis-designed bow that acts as a water scoop, but we are meant to keep quiet about these issues.
 
I did not think anyone said traditional boats were perfect, in fact there's a lot of rubbish around. But there are a few modern grp boats that have lines that will make them the classics in 50 years time, assuming there are people prepared to keep them sailing.
Regarding new floating bathtubs, not all of us can afford £60 - 80,000, then loose on depreciation on a new boat, but I'm glad that people can, they keep the industry alive.
Many ( well it seems it now ) years ago I nearly bought a Janneau Fantasia 27 around 5 years old. The broker, which I knew, said it would not suit me, and I would not enter a bidding war with this other chap, so he got the boat. Just afterwards he heads of for France, mid Channel in rough weather he lost the rudder. After that I always looked carefully at what I bought, and just because it looked flash or modern, never came into again.


Brian
 
As a first boat look for something you can handle, thats solid, family freindly and you can learn-on. A second hand boats is good for this, no matter how good or complete the boat you buy at the time is. After a month or two you will start to see things you want to change and improve. Allow for this in your budget.
I leant so much from my first boat and how they work, repair and how to improve them and I did not miss time sailing her. Good Luck!
The additional money you spend on her you may not recover. But I found it made her more sellable when it can time to part with her.
 
And what about all those dodgy Moody's whoose rudders fell off!
Oh sorry I forgot were not allowed to criticise all those ''mooderley's'' built by companies always on the brink of liquidation using any means to get boats shifted and thrown together with whatever lay around the yard by a workforce unlikely to get paid so hardly bothered about the product.

Do i sound bitter?
 
Agree with you, spent 15 years suppling production boatyards, did delivery to Westerly, next day they went bust.

Brian
 
I bucked all the trends and advice given here. I had a Swin Ranger - a what, I hear you say. Its a motor-sailer similar to a Steadfast 24. You don't need a 'big' boat to do channel crossings, provided you pick your weather (no more than a 5).
I changed to a ketch rigged Colvic Countess 33, also a motor-sailer, but a better sailer than most motor-sailers. (If more people were honest, they would accept that they motor or motor-sail more than they admit to).
The Colvic Countess is mainly built for home completion, so as you can imagine, they come in a variety of standards of finish. If you get a good one, as I reckon I did, the quality and finish can be exelent.
 
I bought a 15 year old Sigma 33, 5 years ago. Its now 20 years old and is almost certainly worth a few £k more than I bought it for. However, over that period, I have spent perhaps two thirds of the purchase price again on replacement bits etc, with the result that she is in extremely good nick.

For the amount I have spent I could have bought a brand new Bavaria. However, after 11,000 miles sailing in those 5 years, I imagine it would be falling apart and I certainly wouldn't have had the same fun sailing it as I have with the Sigma.

Your plan seems like a good one. It will cost you lots of money, untold misery along the way but you will get a good seaworthy boat and an enormous amount of fun!

Richard
 
Oh..go on Bill! Bore away but add a few anecdotes of scenes in Scotland. The sun's out (no, it's just gone 'ahent a clood) and we still live in a free (just) country.

I dredged out my old secondhand price data on Sadler 34s. 1985 boats asking price £39k while a 1996 for £45k. Private sales asking noticeably much more several years ago than brokers are now. New price was £74k+vat when they were built? Appears as though the quality of these boats is very variable - more so than usual perhaps. Does that mean the build quality was variable?
 
May PBO arrived at this far outpost yesterday, so I have now been able to read the article on buying and "doing up" a 10 year old Sadler 34. I did agree with the writer that he was biased, but my own thoughts coincided almost exactly with his. I still think it's a super boat, given the valid criticism that stowage is reduced by the foam insulation and that the aft cabin is certainly aft but hardly a cabin. The doing up didn't seem to consist of much other than polishing and adding some decorative tape. I saw from the photos that it had the imitation teak cockpit seating, IMHO the worst feature of the boat.

Mine is a 1985 model, I have absolutely no complaints regarding construction, finish or quality. Wiring is not new millenium standard. We have evident stress cracks in various places, especially around stanchions, but this is a well-used example. We have spent a lot on maintenance, improvements and additions but I would be expecting 40,000 pounds if I sold, which I won't. I paid 45,000 pounds seven years ago.

Prices do seem to have fallen over the past couple of years. The article suggests that this is a direct consequence of being able to buy a new mass-produced design at 60 - 70,000 pounds. Some of the 35,000 pound 34s I have seen have been absolute sheds, whereas there are still 1985/6 ones at 42,000 that are in very good nick.
 
Somebody in this post, probably Jermain as he normally toes the party line, remarked on the quality of production boat joinery because it was cut by Numerical Control machinery. My boat, and probably yours too, was done by hand. Now, I remember reading an article about how Bavaria make their boats. The hulls were made in "Eastern Europe" and shipped in. Well, of course, an NC build really only works if all of it is NC and the hull clearly can not be. I was puzzled why they had to constrain the hull but they have to, in order to bring the shape into "size" so that the joinery fits. Clearly that's not going to happen at all mating points unless the hull is made sufficiently flexible that it can be forced into shape but there must be a limit to how compliant the grp can be made. Thus the gaps have to be filled with a reasonably flexible adhesive bond. Anything stronger will cause the hull to be pinned which, over time, will become apparent as the more flexible structures either side of the joint move.

The engineering must be quite challenging and clever rather than rigorous - don't you think?

Before anybody jumps down my throat, I am merely passing on experience of NC with deformable, plastic, structures.
 
Re: NC wood

Agreed that there must be a degree of "fitting" of internals to hull. And once an "ideal" size is found, the degree of "fitting" will be minimal. And the wood-to-wood constructions themselves will be far better cut robotically?
 
I bought mine from new in 1985. I had several problems but the main one was that the gel goat on all the corners on the cockpit split within one year of owning the boat. I got a surveyor to examine it , Tony Statton-Bevan , and don't get him started on the build quality of Sadlers , and he said the problem was basically due to flexing of the coach roof mould due to the builder putting it on before it was completely cured. He recommended how to put it right and offered to supervise the repair but warned me that Sadlers would refuse as he was already blackballed from entering Sadler's pemises. Sadlers bodged a repair and Tony predicted that the problem would recur which it did within 2 years. By that time the I had water ingress through the chain plates on the bulkhead , the anchor bow roller was coming loose , the saloon table parted company with the floor to name some things that went wrong. Bear in mind that the boat was only 3 years old. It was a 29 by the way. The design was OK , the main problems were all due to sloppy finishing and crap quality control. I suspect that this is the reason for the large price differentials. If you get a good one as Vyv has , you get a very practical , handsome cruiser. The annoying thing about it was my mates said to me NEVER but a froggie boat for all the usual reasons we hear today , bad build quality , what to the French know about PROPER boats etc , but I sold the Sadler after 4 years and I did buy a French boat , which gave me 12 years of trouble free sailing . Can't really comment on the build quality of the newer foreign production boats as I've never really looked below the surface. They all seem to offer a lot for your money all things considered , the only comment I'd make is that Bavs look a bit bland , but after my experiences with the Sadler , there's a lot worse things a boat could be. And contrary to the belief of some people on this site , they'll still be sailing in 5 years time. Frais I can't fill in with scenes from Scotland. I live near Brighton , an expat , but I can see the sea from my office and it looks a beautiful day for a sail.
 
Bill

Just to let you know its sunny with occassional showers and with average temperature for time of year (13C). Looking out towards Gourock now and sun is glistening over a lovely Firth of Clyde and once the bell goes I'm off to Rhu and thereafter Kip for the night. Kames tomorrow .... who knows for sunday and monday..... looks as if it might be a wet and weekend down there.... shame.

Wish You Were Here.........

Donald
 
Re: NC wood

Thing is that the hull of a yacht will be extraordinarily difficult to make with any precision. It is fundamentally impossible because a) the shape being saucer-like will flex outward as well as sag and b) the moulding conditions need to be at a very high standard to control post-moulding stress and shrinkage. I don't think Bavaria even try to do so (the hulls are delivered stacked inside each other) but create a sufficiently flexible envelope within which the structure can be made to fit by jigging it. That's why I think the engineering is clever but not necessarily good.

The hull which is arguably what matters is made to conform to a piece of wood by ensuring it's construction is flexible enough to do so. That's being slightly disingenuous but is what it amounts to - the hull has to give way. It's an awfully fine calculation whether such a construction will give good long-term results.

A ship designer would say so what - a bulk carrier can grow by several feet when they're in dry dock - but you don't buy it for it's looks.

A motor boat will be far easier. Unlike a yacht's smooth hull, their hulls have chines and other longitudinal ridges and corrugations which give the shape fundamental strength and accuracy. You would not be fighting the design as you would with a yacht.
 
Bill, I thought you said above that you hadn't looked properly at the construction quality of these boats built since your Jeanneau. Were you being modest?

As Bill knows these boats are not my cup of tea, mainly for sailing quality and aesthetic reasons, and I don't like the interiors of Bens and Jens I've sailed (haven't looked at Bavs). I don't know enough about contruction to comment on it, although I can see superficial things like whether joinery is sub-IKEA quality on the one hand or nicely jointed and solid on the other. Boat furniture is generally like any other, you get what you pay for. There's nothing wrong with IKEA if that's the style you're after, don't expect it to last 100 years and don't look too closely when you open the drawers. On the much more important matter of hull/deck integrity etc. I bow to the superior knowledge of others. It would of course be pretty frustrating if all the beautifully made boat furniture were built in to a structurally unsound boat.

On buying secondhand, my feeling is to get the boat that most appeals to you, the buyer, within your price range rather than the one that is the best bargain. It's a bit like buying a house that you're going to live in: there's no point in trying to second-guess what will be popular in X years time for resale values. Get a house/ boat that you would be happy with (provided there's nothing structurally etc. wrong with it). If it is fundamentally a good house/boat, the secondhand value will look after itself provided you look after it. The point is to get the boat/house that you enjoy, and sod everyone else. The odds are that others wil have come to agree with you in X years time anyway.
 
Incitement to riot...............!! I see Kames Hotel is in to "real ale". Still, their reindeer sausages will go with anything.

Say hullo to *The Maid* while you're in the Kyle! According to Munro it was the Cap't of the Oban ferry who painted the rocks but I have to say, that, try as I might, the resemblance to a woman is difficult to see. Perhaps I look at her from the wrong angle?
 
Modest ? Nope. I looked superficially a couple of years ago when I was in the market for a boat but didn't really look further as I realised that they weren't what I was looking for. The finish on them looked OK to my untutored eye. Like yourself I can look at woodwork , the state of the gel coat , etc but I'm no structural engineer. Totally agree re buying boat to suit you rather than looking at depreciation.
 
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