I am a Canadian and purchased a South African boat in
Florida. It also stated not
for sale to US citizens.
From what I understand, in addition to paying the
import duties and registering it in the US it also has to pass Coast Guard regs.
Here are a few of the items that we did so that the boat reached Canadian regs.
1. Replaced all
fuel line with A1
fuel line
2. Installed fire
ports in
engine bays
3. Added smoke and CO detectors in
engine room,
galley, and each
hull
4. Replaced all life jackets
5. Replaced all fire extinguishers
6. Removed the
propane system and replaced the entire thing with new
7. Replaced all seacocks (they were plastic)
And the list goes on...
It's an expensive thing to register some
boats in the US and I suspect most sellers don't want to do that when they don't have a guaranteed
sale.
If you are US citizen you could always see about travelling to seller's country and
buying it there, then come home to US and pick up your boat. I have also heard of people in Florida just running over to the
Bahamas to make the buy there.
Also, only US citizens can register in US. So they would have to create a company in Delaware or such and transfer the boat to the company, have it registered, etc. Real pain when there is no buyer