Hi
We looked solidly for a Jeanneau 42i or DS42 or
Beneteau 43
Oceanis in Croatia/Italy for a few months, basically Feb-May 2011. Probably not the best time to buy - Sept/Oct would be preferable, when the
charter season has finished you would have more options.
In Croatia we found the brokers to be very INACTIVE, not really interested in selling their boats.
Almost without exception the boats are either ex
charter and were not available until Oct (You could buy them but could not take over the boat until then) or owned by private people with leasing arrangements. Often the leasing arrangements were by foreigners keeping their boats in Croatia.
We found an excellent private boat dealing with the owner himself. We really tried to buy it, agreed on
price etc but because he had leasing in
Poland we would have had to go to Krackow ,
Poland to close the deal. Then it got in the too hard basket.
The charter boats we looked at in Dubrovnik, despite being 2008/09 models we quite knocked about and with very large
engine hours (eg 1400 hrs in May 2011).
Croatia itself is a lovely country, very beautiful with great cruising areas. The Croatian people are wonderful too. We stayed in small,
budget apartments and got to know the owners very well. We have many happy memories of staying in their communities. Pity we didn't get a boat.
So we came back to
Australia and bought a
Dufour 425 for better value than what we saw in Croatia and much better condition (taking into a/c
shipping back to Oz after a couple of years) We are currently getting used to her on the
East Coast of Oz.
Good luck in your search.
dmgf