Is the secondhand boat market ever likely to rise again?

fredrussell said:
So, with this all in mind, as I start to think about buying a larger boat than my current 23 foot trailer sailer do I go for the 30 footer that I eventually hope to own or go for a 26 footer 'in-between-er' as previously planned? My concern is that I may well be 'stuck' with the next boat. The 30 footer will take longer to save for (£20k say) whereas I've seen a few half decent 26ers for around the £10k mark of late.
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Having gone from a Trident 24 (ft) to a Westerly Centaur (26ft) and now a 29ft Westerly Konsort... we wished we had skipped the Centaur (lovely boat that it is) and gone straight for the boat we actually wanted to keep mid to long term, (the Konsort is ideal for where we are and how we use it). 32ft Fulmars can be had for under £20k! Plenty of good 29/30 ft boats for £15k out there.
 
Many good posts here and in the other current thread 'Boat prices' with accurate analysis of the market.

Sailing Clubs seem to have more and more tidal and deep water swinging moorings available... the average age of the membership continues to increase with little evidence that the required volume of new/young cruiser orientated membership is coming through. Unless the clubs change and adapt, I do fear for the future of them. If they start to fold (I do think this could start to happen within 10-15 years) and moorings disappear (as it's unlikely commercial operators will take on moorings that a sailing club can not fill) then we will not be able to even give our old AWB or MAB away... we will be paying for disposal.

High end larger second hand boats 10 years old or less (and £100k plus) still seem to be selling well, but even they have to be sensibly priced... and the way things are going, it will be their turn next unless the current volume of new boats built drops of a cliff.
 
Colvic Watson said:
This is a real guesstimate but I reckon there must be 1,000 new boats in the 32-42 foot size coming to the UK each year split between the Ben/Jen/Bav/Han/others - otherwise it's less than 200 for each manufacturer a year. So unless we gain 1,000 new boat owners a year then 1,000 boats a year need to be scrapped or we're flooding out the market - which means that the family sized AWB market is going to start dropping. Curiously the sub 30 footer market which dropped like a stone a few years ago is probably quite stable because no one makes volume sub 30 footers.
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Suspect it is only half that number - and many boats sold by UK dealers do not stay in UK. Just to give you an idea (public information), Hanse have delivered 4 boats so far this year and are offering good discounts on another 5 to meet their targets. My knowledge of how many Bavarias were sold at Southampton and London would support a much lower estimate than yours.
 
Tranona said:
Suspect it is only half that number - and many boats sold by UK dealers do not stay in UK. Just to give you an idea (public information), Hanse have delivered 4 boats so far this year and are offering good discounts on another 5 to meet their targets. My knowledge of how many Bavarias were sold at Southampton and London would support a much lower estimate than yours.
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Absolutely right! There are nowhere near 1000 new 32-42' boats sold into the UK annually. I'd guess maybe 200.

MABs are gradually slipping away from marinas and ending up on mud berths. Smaller boats are being scrapped, or languish in dark corners of fields.
 
I suspect it's not so much the ever increasing number of boats ( as I suspect that is not true) more the lack of new entrants to sailing and cruising in particular.

20-30 years ago (or more) if you wanted to sail a cruiser you basically had to own one or know someone with one. Now that's not the case. Plenty of flotilla operators somewhere warm. Closer to home, there are also plenty of boats in interesting places that can be chartered for a weekend, day, fortnight.

So young neophyte can charter something brand new for a fortnight for less than the cost of an annual Marina berth and then next year go somewhere different. No maintenance, lifts, cold boatyards in January. No depreciation and capital is not tied up. If they want to do more, then shared ownership / members clubs etc.

After a few years of doing that, the attraction of buying a 30 year old MAB that is two notches down for comfort, style and performance to the charter boats they are used to becomes less attractive. Some will still buy of course. However, it doesn't take many to divert from an "own" model to a "rent" model to put the market out of balance.
 
PabloPicasso said:
Good question

Another point in this equation is the annual costs of maintenance, berthing, lifting, storage ashore etc. Who'll pay these on cheap sh1 t old falling apart at the seams GRP AWBs?
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I for one will. I just wanted to have a bit of a sail about on Ullswater, and somewhere to kip for a weekend or a few days and wake up to beautiful scenery. Do a spot of trout fishing. Although my boat is not falling apart at the seams, it is old (circa 1970). My boat included brand new mast & rigging fitted 5 seasons ago at a cost of nearly £5k and a good modern Marina 6hp outboard and I paid under £1k !! I don't see the point of spending any large amount for a fairweather fun boat, but will happily pay the running costs.
For my kind of sailing hobby, an expensive boat (£5k +);) would be sheer folly and a waste, a bit like those who buy expensive motor homes and then leave them parked in their drives for 45 weeks every year, just to impress the neighbours.
 
pvb said:
Absolutely right! There are nowhere near 1000 new 32-42' boats sold into the UK annually. I'd guess maybe 200.
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You may be right, it was a wild guess. If so it explains why there's no mileage in two boat shows. If it really is only 200 - which I think is ultra conservative it makes it a £20m industry, like I said it sounds a bit low.
 
For all boat owners ( like myself) it really is important to understand that we have some long term trends that mostly tend to drive second hand values down:
1. Change in habit from boat owning to boat using. As said above, why own when you can charter?
2. No pressure to take MABs out. No equivalent to the MOT.
3. Steady technical improvements in new boat design.

All of which conspire to reduce the demand for older used yachts.

About the only thing which still favours ownership is the intangible factor which we used to call "pride of ownership", and which used to be incredibly strong.

So, what should we do?
For individual owners, enjoy owning a yacht but make sure the enjoyment is costed out correctly as 100% expense, no delusions of making an investment.
For clubs, think about how to finance ownership of your own boats, to be made available for members to use. It is one way of keeping our multi-pleasured younger generation involved. Maybe by the time they reach our age the cycle will have turned again and individual ownership will be fashionable.
 
Colvic Watson said:
You may be right, it was a wild guess. If so it explains why there's no mileage in two boat shows. If it really is only 200 - which I think is ultra conservative it makes it a £20m industry, like I said it sounds a bit low.
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The profit margins on new boats are large, and most new boat dealers make a lot of money out of brokerage of older boats.
 
pvb said:
Absolutely right! There are nowhere near 1000 new 32-42' boats sold into the UK annually. I'd guess maybe 200.
.
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About a decade ago, when I was an AWB dealer, we sold about 100 sailboats of over twenty feet LOA a year into the UK. The other two leading dealers sold similar numbers, maybe 500 a year between the three of us. Add all the other types of yacht and a round figure of 1000 a year would be in the ballpark.

No longer involved professionally, so cannot comment on today's numbers.
 
pvb said:
The profit margins on new boats are large, and most new boat dealers make a lot of money out of brokerage of older boats.
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Gosh, so that has certainly changed since I was an AWB dealer a decade ago. Can you tell us what the typical gross profit margin is today?
 
Resolution said:
Gosh, so that has certainly changed since I was an AWB dealer a decade ago. Can you tell us what the typical gross profit margin is today?
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Well, the waters are muddied with charges such as "delivery" and "commissioning", but the crooks I bought from were working on around 20% gross margin.
 
Resolution said:
About a decade ago, when I was an AWB dealer, we sold about 100 sailboats of over twenty feet LOA a year into the UK. The other two leading dealers sold similar numbers, maybe 500 a year between the three of us. Add all the other types of yacht and a round figure of 1000 a year would be in the ballpark.

No longer involved professionally, so cannot comment on today's numbers.
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They say that a week is a long time in politics, I'm sure a decade is a very long time in the boat market.
 
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