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Is the sailboat market really this bad?

38K views 152 replies 79 participants last post by  VF84Sluggo 
#1 · (Edited)
I have just had an unreal weekend.

My wife and I attended the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum annual boat auction. We went last year and saw some good deals on various boats. They had listed several racers that are in my club race fleets so I was in the market for a potentially cheap racer. Specifically a Comet, a couple of Lightnings and two Star boats. Last year, a Star needing serious TLC sold for $200. My wife was looking for a potential play powerboat for the river.

This year made that look good.

This is a no-reserve auction. Highest bid, no matter how low, takes it.

Most of the powerboats went for $1000-$7000. The two jet boats my wife liked, an Avon Seasport DL 400 jet RIB and a Regal 1700 jet boat sold for $6600 and $3600, respectively. Well beyond our self-imposed budget of $2000. The Avon new is a $28K boat. Lowest was a wood Chris Craft 23 that sold for $600. Guy bought it for the trailer and was going to scrap the rest. Sad.

If you were a sailor looking for your first boat or a hell of a bargain, this was your day.

Some highlights:

A clean Tanzer 22 on trailer with 7hp outboard: $250
A very clean, ready-to-sail Tanzer 22 on stands, no motor: $50
Venture 24, no trailer: $50
Venture 22, no trailer: $25 (would have sold for that, no bidders)
An almost-new looking Macgregor 26 water-ballasted sailboat with 8hp electric start outboard on trailer: $500
Restored 1938 Comet wood sailboat: $1300 (some bastard stole the boom the day before the auction)
1970s era Star #5406 on trailer, 2 sets of sails, needs some TLC: $400
Wooden 40s-era Star sailboat on trailer, needs restoration: $50
28 foot double-ender sloop, 4 cylinder diesel: $1300
Hunter 30, Yanmar diesel, needed a bath, new bottom paint, in the water in sailaway condition: $750.
Morgan 34: $7100
Columbia 9.6: $3400
30 foot wooden sloop: $5700

No, I did not leave zeroes off the ends of most of those numbers. Someone bought a mid-80s Hunter 30 with a clean Yanmar diesel for $750.

If you were looking for a first, cheap or throwaway sailboat, this was your chance. My wife and I kept looking at each other in disbelief at what some of these boats were selling for. And kicking ourselves for not buying more. I would've bought that Hunter and either took it to my local broker and sold it for 5 times that or pried the Yanmar out of it, repowered my C27 and scrapped/parted out the remainder. Would've been worth the month or two of storage costs.

Mostly, the powerboats sold reasonably well and the sailboats mostly ignored. Some oddballs were a Point Jude 14 without trailer that sold for $2800, an old Optimist hull (no rig) for $900 and two Dyer Dhow dinghies with wooden sail rigs that both fetched well north of $2000 each (one went for $2800, I don't remember the other).

I bought what I went for: Star #5406. I would've got it for $100 but someone bid us up and stopped at $400. I reflect on the fact that at the same time last year I bought my Laser for $400. This year I got a Star for the same price.

Either the sailboat market is really this bad or people just don't want boats anymore given state of the economy. Some of these boats I would have happily bought and thought nothing of donating back a year or two later, considering the costs in the meantime a cheap rental.

I'd say it was unbelievable but I was there and saw it. We couldn't pry ourselves away from what had essentially become a form of auction horror show. The Museum raised money, which is the purpose of the auction, but sad to see so many boats essentially given away. Cheaper to sell them for whatever they can get than clutter up their storage area, I guess.

Matt
 
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#4 ·
Not so surprising really. When you take into consideration the cost of storage and maintenance, even many boats that are in decent mechanical condition have a negative value. Sure someone might like to have a 30ft boat for $700, but that person is not likely to be capable of spending $5000 per year in storage and maintenance. The person who has the 5k per year will generally want a boat that is a little nicer. Fixing up clunkers rarely works either, as once you start putting money into the $700 clunker to fix it up, you will quickly run through whatever savings you thought you had. Sadly for many of these older boats, they are overdue for a date with a chainsaw.
 
#7 ·
The person who has the 5k per year will generally want a boat that is a little nicer. Fixing up clunkers rarely works either, as once you start putting money into the $700 clunker to fix it up, you will quickly run through whatever savings you thought you had. Sadly for many of these older boats, they are overdue for a date with a chainsaw.
Generally agreed. However, many of these boats were not one step from the salvager. The Tanzer 22s were both very nice boats, clean inside, no evidence of mold, water damage or corrosion, good bulkheads and so on. I went aboard both. Had there been a Tanzer 22 fleet in my area, I would have bought one.

I guess it depends on what you define as "clunker". The Ventures, for example, were rough. The Morgan was in great condition. I told my wife that if stayed in the price range of the Hunter, I'd take a run at it and trade up.

I see most owners doing it as labors of love. I didn't buy that Star to recoup my investment. I put $600 into my Laser and I'll put about twice that into the Star. $1500 or so to give me a high performance racer that my wife and I can enjoy for an additional $1500/year in club fees is relatively cheap fun in my book. The woman who bought the Macgregor 26 for $500 got herself a nice starter boat.
 
#9 ·
It really is a buyer's market. I have an app on my Andriod that searches Craigslist. I watch for certain keywords; Formosa, Irwin, ketch... Things that I like and am interested in.

What I see are owners that list their boats, but then over weeks, even months, they eventually come down to what the market will pay. That is usually about 60% of what they originally wanted. Even their initial expectations are coming down, and before they sell, their prices have dropped much lower than you might expect.

Great time to buy, but a terrible time to sell. Don't think things will improve for sellers for many years to come.
 
#13 ·
I took a blood bath on my boat that I just sold, and the only thing that made it palatable was that I upgraded to a Pearson 30 in excellent shape, for very little money.
Therein lies the true story if you are selling a boat - as long as you use the funds for another boat you haven't really lost anything because the new one will be just as cheap (as long as you don't buy new).

It's just like buying & selling securities in a down market - if you keep your money in the market you don't lose anything except on paper. It's when you sell and put the money in something that hasn't crashed that you lose.

I've been a sailboat owner since the early 70's and I've never seen anything remotely like this market - if you ever wanted a boat, now is the time to get in - there's nowhere to go but up and the price of admission can't get any lower - people are PAYING to have their boats taken away.
 
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#11 ·
Very true. Unfortunately, many sellers still will not accept the fact that fair market value is determined by supply and demand not by what they paid for the boat 5 years ago plus what they spent on it. We appear to be settling into a prolonged recession/stagnant economy. An economic recovery is not around the corner.
 
#19 ·
Boats are like any other "passionate pasttime" in that they resemble the stock market: the only time you get hurt is when you get out.

Right before the real estate crash, my wife says to me, "But honey, look, we can make a LOT of money on our house right now" and I say; "But honey, look how much the new house you want actually costs".....
 
#20 ·
Not exactly sure I understand where the inventory for this auction comes from.

Someone pointed out the cost of carry for these boats, which rightly influences the buyers willingness to pay. But more importantly, that influences the seller, particularly if they aren't owners who will just use the boat if it doesn't sell. They won't likely sell anything over the winter and faces many more months of carry. The buyers probably know that and the free market works.

As trivia, I've owned my current boat for two years now. Much of the inventory that I considered, during the year prior to buying her, is still for sale and prices are still declining. I watch them on yactworld for some reason.
 
#25 ·
Matt, you can't make any assumptions about market values from that sale.

Some auctions are well publicized, and reflect the public market. Others are not publicized, either because the folks in charge did a poor job, or because they were "insider" sales, intentionally kept quite so insiders could buy cheap.

I know nothing about that museum or that auction, just remarking on some of the many ways it could have nothing to do with market prices.
 
#26 ·
Not well advertised, but...

I believe the museum publishes a quarterly magazine, has a website, and may send out mass e-mails to subscribers (I have intended to rejoin), so the auction is probably not that well advertised.

Nevertheless, the strong buyers' market is reflected on eBay, Craigslist, sailboatlistings.com and other web sites. Some boats are being given away for free or for very low prices. It seems as if marina owners are also having a tough time filling their slips.

From my perspective as a potential buyer for the last couple of years, it appears that the market is worsening as inventory increases - supply continues to increase faster than demand does. Prices inevitably drop as motivated sellers compete with each other for the scarce buyers and the better informed buyers realize they can be more selective and bargain harder on price and terms (ex., seller represents and warrants present condition, splits cost of haulout, etc.).

The recession also seems to have accelerated the impact of the internet in replacing traditional methods of selling boats by brokers, word of mouth, and classified ads. I would guess that fewer sellers and buyers recognize the value of the traditional boat broker, when sellers can get just as much or more exposure through other sources.

One other factor that may be influencing the market may be the lack of financing due the ageing of the inventory - boats built in the 70s may now be ineligible because they are more than 30 years old and their values are probably below minimum loan amounts plus the tightening of credit underwriting standards has made credit scarce.
 
#27 ·
I believe the museum publishes a quarterly magazine, has a website, and may send out mass e-mails to subscribers (I have intended to rejoin), so the auction is probably not that well advertised.

Nevertheless, the strong buyers' market is reflected on eBay, Craigslist, sailboatlistings.com and other web sites. Some boats are being given away for free or for very low prices. It seems as if marina owners are also having a tough time filling their slips.

From my perspective as a potential buyer for the last couple of years, it appears that the market is worsening as inventory increases - supply continues to increase faster than demand does. Prices inevitably drop as motivated sellers compete with each other for the scarce buyers and the better informed buyers realize they can be more selective and bargain harder on price and terms (ex., seller represents and warrants present condition, splits cost of haulout, etc.).

The recession also seems to have accelerated the impact of the internet in replacing traditional methods of selling boats by brokers, word of mouth, and classified ads. I would guess that fewer sellers and buyers recognize the value of the traditional boat broker, when sellers can get just as much or more exposure through other sources.

One other factor that may be influencing the market may be the lack of financing due the ageing of the inventory - boats built in the 70s may now be ineligible because they are more than 30 years old and their values are probably below minimum loan amounts plus the tightening of credit underwriting standards has made credit scarce.
Yep. The market for older boats is not going to recover until a whole bunch of them meet the chainsaw. When I am turning down people who are trying to give me J24s with trailers, the market is really bad. If you like old boats, you have to start looking at this market like manna from heaven. Go ahead and enjoy, but don't stock up or you will get yourself sick.
 
#31 ·
The (5-ton!) 27 foot sloop was wooden and had rot in some of the frames, otherwise I might have bid on it. The 30 foot wooden double ender sloop had a rotten bulkhead and who knows what else wrong with it. I'm surprised it sold for so much.
 
#32 ·
Maybe obama will do a cash for clunkers programs for boats.

This has been an interesting thread. I'm in the market right now, provided I keep my job. I haven't thought about auctions, but definitely don't want a project boat and would like to have a thorough inspection done before I buy. When you buy at an auction, is it pretty much "as is" or buyer beware type stuff?
 
#37 ·
Maybe obama will do a cash for clunkers programs for boats.
Why oh why oh why would anyone want that? :eek:

The Cash for Clunkers program destroyed tens of thousands of perfectly good cars and encouraged people to replaced them with disposable crap.

Can you imagine everyone trading in their Cape Dorys and Albergs for Hunters and Macgregors?
:puke
 
#34 ·


It's a buyers market. I got this boat in January of this year for 2800.00 from a charity. 1972 Conyplex Contest 33 hull #106. It needs a lot of work but I am very happy with a boat that can go anywhere.
It had five sails, pressure water system, all kinds of parts and inventory. It does need a lot of work though. It has a locked up engine, it needs a new head, and to have everything bedded and beefed up on deck. A coat of paint wouldn't hurt either.
 
#40 ·
If you want to grab a boat to sailing and or cruising you couldn't pick a better time to get one. You may have to work on it a bit but remember that it tends to cost less outside the United States. I am planning on going to central America to get a lot of the maintenance done instead of doing it here.
 
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