Advice for European trip

[massnspace]

Hello All:

My wife and I are considering buying a sailboat in Europe, sailing for about 6 months, selling the boat, and then returning to the USA. We are pretty experienced sailors.

My wife also has Norwegian citizenship, which we think may make doing this a bit easier….

Our question is: Given our time frame, and also given that we have relatives in Oslo who we could use for a starting or ending point, what would be a good one way trip? Buy in Greece and sail to Norway????? Buy in Norway and sail to Croatia??? Prevalent wind patterns??? Taxes??? Importation issues??? Etc…

Any advice welcome.

Thank you,

David in Seattle

[goboatingnow]

You’ll have personal tourist visa waivers that allow you 90 in 180 in any Schengen Agreement country

That timing will dictate things.

Other then that vat status needs to be acertained

[psk125]

Might be cheaper to charter if you're only interested in 6 months. You won't have to hassle with "finding the right boat" to buy, or worry about selling (or not being able to sell it) afterwards. The charter outfit would have make sure the boat was in good shape before you set out, rather than you, and you wouldn't have the capital costs involved with a purchase or any required improvements to the boat. People used to buy cars, drive around Europe, and then sell them back to the manufacturer, but that was in a program with guaranteed prices for the purchase and the sell-back, with everything spelled out beforehand. What you propose sounds like it could get very expensive.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by psk125

Might be cheaper to charter if you're only interested in 6 months. You won't have to hassle with "finding the right boat" to buy, or worry about selling (or not being able to sell it) afterwards. The charter outfit would have make sure the boat was in good shape before you set out, rather than you, and you wouldn't have the capital costs involved with a purchase or any required improvements to the boat. People used to buy cars, drive around Europe, and then sell them back to the manufacturer, but that was in a program with guaranteed prices for the purchase and the sell-back, with everything spelled out beforehand. What you propose sounds like it could get very expensive.

Very hard to charter boats long term like 6 months as charter companies make too much during the July Aug high season , I don’t know any on the long term business.

Buying and selling is no real issue allow about 6 weeks for each process.

[Fore and Aft]

Massnspace you might find an owner who will buy his boat back at a discount after 6 months. That happened to a yacht I surveyed here in Queensland. It worked out well as the buyer did a one way voyage and the old owner picked up the yacht and brought it back to his home port then sold it again.
Cheers

[letsgetsailing3]

The problem, of course, is that the visa complexity goes way up to stay more than 90 days out of 180.


It's a lot easier if you can get it done in 90 days.