Where to look

[PabloPicasso]

What are the most useful online resources for finding a sailing boat in Britain or Ireland?

A cruiser around 30ft or so?

Are decent boats in this size getting harder to find?

 

[Baddox]

Are you looking to charter or buy?

We bought our current 32 footer when I overheard someone at the marina mention they were thinking of selling so I asked him what it was. 2 minutes later we were being shown around an immaculate as-new boat and 5 minutes after that we shook hands and bought it without advertising, fuss or survey. Walk the pontoons and chat with owners of boats that you like the look of.

I’ve been looking for a bigger boat now I’ve retired and look on yachtmarket and yachtworld sites as well as one or two smaller ones such as boatpoint since they have a brokerage at our marina. We’ve let the broker know what we are looking for too.

 

[Stemar]

For buying, I'd start with Apollo Duck

 

[mrming]

What are the most useful online resources for finding a sailing boat in Britain or Ireland?

A cruiser around 30ft or so?

Are decent boats in this size getting harder to find?

In addition to Apollo Duck as recommended above, yachtworld and boats.com

Between those 3 you’ll see 95% of the publicly advertised boats for sale in the UK. I watch the UK and European markets weekly for boats up to £100k. Even across Europe it’s a relatively small market, particularly once you discard boats in mediocre or worse condition. The UK alone is tiny and you should soon have seen every boat in your niche for sale. I’ve seen a few nice UK boats in that size range over the last 6 months. They do come up.

 

[Blueboatman]

In the spirit of what Baddox has written, if you have a preferred manufacturer and they have a preferred dealer/broker then I would chat to them .
Why?
Because many boat owners do seem to trade up within one manufacturers offerings . So by logic they are motivated and wealthy and the boats will be at the newer and better end of the s/h range .. in theory
And, you can register your interest with the broker dealer. You might pay more but , are you really paying more if it’s a good newer boat with one caring owner ?
There’s that awful saying. All boats cost the same number of coins in the end!

 

[PabloPicasso]

All very interesting replies.

Thanks.