At the height of the pandemic last summer, a sailing-surfing pal I knew from my days on Guam (a great place to rebuild the cruising kitty) contacted me out of the blue. He was looking for a boat. He’d had it with the madness of South Florida and planned to hightail it to the Bahamas.
“I’m thinking catamaran,” he said.
“You want the boat with or without its own YouTube channel?” I asked.
“Without, definitely.”
“Tough order. How about a blog?”
“No blog. . . I don’t want a bunch of former followers banging on my hull in Georgetown. Is that possible?”
“Probably not. But I know a broker who can help.”
A month later, he had his boat, a Packet Cat that suited his powerboat sensibilities. And I’ve not heard from him since—presumably because he’s happily off the grid.
Never has the aspiring cruiser had so much information on so many boats right at their fingertips. And I’m not talking about the online brokerage sites. Want to find out if the boat’s had any keel damage? Check out Episode 57, “The Big Crunch” on the owner’s YouTube site. Leaks, engine woes, rigging failures—the things prospective sellers don’t usually talk about—are now aired publicly for all to see.
One of the more popular YouTube sailing tropes is the search for the perfect boat. It’s a unicorn hunt if you ask me, but thousands of viewers tune in each week, and I can see why. For the incurable boat-dreamer, these tire-kicking expeditions are more addictive than well-aged rum. As our YouTube
Virgils virtually escort us from boat to boat, we easily forget that the curated selection bears little resemblance to the real world—at least the world of Florida boats under $50K, where I browse.
My most common encounters so far have been hornets nests, mold farms, blister mines—and very busy brokers who generously take the time to show boats that are hardly queens of the fleet. The experience reminded me of an often overlooked truism about buying boats.
Unless you are rich, lucky, or an enthusiastic shipwright, your boat is the product of the previous owner. Indeed, you could almost say that instead of looking for the perfect boat, you should look for the perfect owner. You’ll know them by the attention to detail, level of organization, impeccable records and—unfortunately for the bottom feeder—a price that truly reflects the value of their boat.
