Who will Buy the Boats?

[SURV69]

just read an article(yesterday), in a 2007(?), sailing magazine that indicated that the number of sailors has been reduced about 40% since the 1980's.

It further indicated that the reduction rises to about 70% since the 1970's.

Shouldn't this mean that for all but the most well-built boats of the best designs, that boats can be expected to sit on the hard and be left to deteriorate to the point of worthlessness(sp), if the owners will not GREATLY reduce the price they're asking?

I see boats listing for years with no takers until the owner drops the price of a $10,000 boat to $8000,then continue to languish further until the price is very drastically dropped ... or until the boat becomes almost completely worthless at any price ... and let's not forget the cost of storing a boat that an owner doesn't want.

With a 70% drop in participating boater(sailors), and probably even lower since the 2007(?), article, it seems to me these boats should be selling for pennies on the dollar of what the boats would have brought(used), in the 1980's to the 1910's.

to top it off, unlike a car(parked in the driveway), that has a worthwhile value in it's steel, the sailboat actually has a negative value since a boat that doesn't sell continues to cost the owner. Plus, I wonder when "junk", fiberglass boats might be required to be "recycled", at a substantial cost it's last owner when it becomes impossible to sell at any price.

Realistically, I think an extremely high number of "good", sailboats sitting in yards with "for sale", signs are actually derilicts(?), even though their owners don't realize it.

When do we lower, economically challenged boaters really(I mean really), start seeing prices that reflect the crisis that is upon us and destined to get worse still?

Then ... how do we get rid of the boat we already have????

[charliehows]

well I've been picking up boats cheap since the 70's.
there are always good boats to be had for a song - but the same song can be a funeral march if you dont know what to look for.

[kmacdonald]

The majority of old boats on the market will never sell. I pass by marinas and see acres of sailboats on the hard and for sale. Until the owners realise the boat is a liability and not an asset, they will just sit there year after year waiting for a buyer that will never come.

[onestepcsy37]

But well made and maintained older boats do sell, once, and if, the owner gets a dose of reality. Like the freeport 36 that sold on this forum for 20k.

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[Troubador]

I have had 4 boats offered to me for free in the last 4 years. I did take the 32ft centre cockpit Coronado that was fully loaded including a new 4 cylinder yanmar diesel. It was turnkey. Couldn't say no to that one. The fuel tank was even full


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[robert sailor]

Certainly are lots of boats for sale so if your buying one better do your homework well. Most of the new production boats are in vogue with their huge beams run aft and large bright interiors that women love. Sorta makes the older boat of similar length feel small and dark. So run of the mill production boats will probably lose value the fastest and this includes newly built ones.

What they are not replacing in large numbers are higher quality, well built boats that are ideal for offshore use in most latitudes, it just costs so much to build these boats and most buyers are happy buying the lighter built production boats so if you buy one of these boats and keep it up its quite likely that you will be able to sell it when that day comes because there just are not that many of them and there are savvy buyers who are looking for them. If you relate it to cars...the Benni's Bavaria's etc are like Fords and Chev's and after they are 10-15 years old there is little to no value to them but if you bought a better built boat it would be like selling a 15 year old Porsche....not that hard.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by SURV69

just read an article(yesterday), in a 2007(?), sailing magazine that indicated that the number of sailors has been reduced about 40% since the 1980's.

It further indicated that the reduction rises to about 70% since the 1970's.

Really????

I haven't been boating that long, but are you that there are 70% less sailboats out on the water than in the 70s. Based on how full marinas and mooring fields are in my area I find that impossible to believe!

[SURV69]

it's not me saying it ...it's the 2007(?) magazine article.

I left it on the table at our laundromat & will give the magazine name year and volume later.

I think it said 70% less active sailors ... not 70% less boats.

It's probably 100+% boats since 2007 ... the boats just don't rot & go away, especially since the mid 1960's.

So, I take from the article ... more and more boats ... less and less interest ... less and less buyers.

Unless everyone now feels a need to own more sailboats.

I suppose this would make sailboat buying a buyer's market ... or approaching "no", or nearly "no", market at all.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by SURV69

I suppose this would make sailboat buying a buyer's market...

Yep. Which it is. Here in Florida there are tons of used boats for sale. Many at unrealistic prices. Those sit for years and years without selling. Some at more reasonable prices. Those sell within a fair amount of time. You are absolutely right that many of the boats sitting there, waiting to sell, with owners who are unrealistic about the price they can get, are just derelicts that haven't been recognized as such yet--sooner or later they will go to the scrap heap.

An example... There's a particular boat I've been watching on the "for sale" lists. I first noticed it almost 5 years ago, offered in the $60k+ range (which was completely ridiculous at the time). Over the years the asking price has been lowered a couple of times until it is now down in the $30k+ range. Once it gets down to an asking price of no more than $20k (meaning that it could probably be bought for around $10k-$15k) it might be a reasonable purchase. That is, if it has been kept up, and is still in the condition reflected in those 5-year-old photos.

Problem is, it probably hasn't been kept up. It has probably been completely neglected, and only has value as scrap by now. If that's the case, I might be willing to take it for free, but I certainly wouldn't be willing to pay much--if anything--for it. This is a pattern (a very sad pattern) that you see pretty regularly with old boats nowadays.

As to, how do we get rid of the boat that we already have? Price it to sell. It really is that simple. Get the emotion of out it. Realize that you are not going to get your investment back. Talk to a broker and ask for a brutally-honest assessment of how much your boat is worth. Then, when he gives you a number that is one-half, or one-third, or maybe only one-fifth, of what you were hoping to get, accept that he is right and you are wrong. And then sell the boat.

[robert sailor]

The stories of free boats is all well and good but anyone who is actually trying to find/buy a nice used boat that has been well maintained will find it not as easy as you might think. The real nicely kept used boats are never given away and there is always a market for them.

[Stu Jackson]

I have an old boat. It's going to be my last boat. I remain amazed that 86.4% of the boats in my marina don't get used, at all, never. But I put that aside, because I use my boat. At least every week, if not more. Many of those on this forum liveaboard, so they're using their boats more than I am, which is a hell of a lot more than the boats in my marina. And it's not just my marina, everyone has noted this.

By now, I simply don't care that they're not using their boats.

All I care about is that I AM using MY boat.

And it's in better condition than the sit-arounds. A friend of mine who sailed regularly with me once said: "We use the boat so much so we can figure out what to fix next!"

But everything works, since the approach is to have the boat ready to go all the time. It fails, it gets fixed, right away. Maintenance is up to date.

Why these jokers pay slip fees is beyond me.

But I do not care anymore.

[SURV69]

For now, there's a market for well maintained boats ... pretty much.

I know of well maintained boats that actually sold for the asking price.

BUT ... if this trend continues, there will not be enough buyers for the well maintained boats either ... unless something changes and more boaters find interest in sailing.

Eventually, the well maintained sailboats will also become the abandoned derelicts too.

Add to this that with society's penchant to regulate things, that the disposal of fiberglass boats will eventually become an issue ... no more dumping thousands of pounds of fiberglass into the local landfill. This "disposal", is no doubt going to mean that not only will a seller need to contend with maintenance, insurance and costs of storage. It will mean that if/when a marginally useful boat, which was overpriced becomes trash, it will cost the owner money to dispose of it.

Maybe boat brokers will accept one's old boat as part of the buying of a new/bigger boat, but only after requiring a "core-charge", like they do for old tires and batteries.

These boats are continuing to flood the used boat market and they don't just disappear when there's no buyers or usage.

[boatman61]

Said it before..
Say it again..
Anyone wants to get rid of those damn monthly/bi-annual/annual bills and fits 32<->37ft give me a shout..
Must be sail away, on a coast... and free..
Lake boats considered..
if you can afford the transport..

[BandB]

Originally Posted by SURV69

it's not me saying it ...it's the 2007(?) magazine article.

I left it on the table at our laundromat & will give the magazine name year and volume later.

I think it said 70% less active sailors ... not 70% less boats.

It's probably 100+% boats since 2007 ... the boats just don't rot & go away, especially since the mid 1960's.

So, I take from the article ... more and more boats ... less and less interest ... less and less buyers.

Unless everyone now feels a need to own more sailboats.

I suppose this would make sailboat buying a buyer's market ... or approaching "no", or nearly "no", market at all.

So because someone in a 2007 article in a magazine in the laundromat said it, then it must be true? Like everything anyone says on the internet?

We don't know the context, don't know what the statistics are based on. We do know boat sales declined by huge percentages during the 2008-2009 economic collapse. That, more than anything led to supply outstripping demand. In fact, in boating as a whole, the economy has influenced trends far more than fuel or other factors.

Boats, especially sailboats are interesting in that new boats will always tend to outstrip retirements. To build homes, we tear down old ones. We take cars to junk yards. Boats we keep around, restore.

Are the actual number of sailboaters down or is the usage by those who own? Obviously owners isn't because whether they ever move or not, they're still owned. So is it active users? Perhaps use is down due to the work demands on so many. Is it certain parts of the world? Because there are certainly some areas where the boating market is growing. How did the article even define "sailor?"

As to signs, well marinas in some areas seem more crowded and in other areas less so. Still there have been new marinas built so clearly there are more boats at marinas in total. But that says nothing about use.

Are we talking only those who cruise often or the casual user to? How do shifts between sail and power figure into this?

I think this is a worthy topic to discuss but I don't buy the numbers posted, especially not knowing the source or the context or how they were arrived at.

As to who will buy the boats, we went through a period during the 2000's in buying of houses, cars, and boats that is unrealistic and perhaps even undesirable to maintain. We traded, we upgraded. We acted as a society that always thought huge growth was guaranteed. But now there is a more normal pace to the industry. Boats have always been a luxury item and remain so. But with all the used boats available, I don't think price is what keeps new owners from entering. Rather it's often time, time to use and enjoy, time to maintain and care for.

There are a tremendous number of derelict boats that no one has declared so, boats sitting in yards that will never be used again. There are boats at marinas that haven't been used for years. Still there is demand for quality boats. Some boats won't sell, because frankly many boats offered aren't worthy of being purchased. In some ways that may become an important issue. When boats were wooden, disposing of the old ones was easy. Even steel and aluminum boats have been easily disposed of as scrap. Glass boats, however, don't have scrap value so they sit, they remain. There is really no system in place for disposal. So the old junk sits still on the market. Some are given away because they are worthless, not because of lack of sailors.

During the economic crisis the number of boats on the market did increase dramatically but that reflects all luxury items and markets. People put items up for sale at the same time people cut back on buying. That has actually relaxed a bit now but all those added to the market and not sold do remain.

[SURV69]

I remember the noted article referring to "Saving sailing".

I don't remember the magazine and someone cleaned up the laundromat ... %#$^$$*&.

But here is a link to an article about the diminishing involement in sailing(In America), where the numbers probably came from originally ...

Saving Sailing - USITA Long Beach