Hey folks, didn’t mean to be disrespectful to the owner or whoever listed this boat. It’s a fine boat and obviously been very well taken care of. At a typical market price it will be very serviceable for a new owner.
Ironically, after I posted my response we were looking back on some boats we considered in the past and guess what? YES, THIS WAS ONE! We kept the info and a video on this boat and it was originally MARCH 2019! I think this is a perfect example of my point and exactly what I was talking about. You think the market has responded? I do.
This boat has been on and off the market now for almost 2 full years. When do the owners finally react to the market conditions or do owners just hang on hoping for a sucker to overpay? It’s possible someone will pay the asking price or close to it but unlikely it’s someone who’s done their homework.
Hi there, Dan from Alabama,
My boat comes on and off the market due to several factors. I live in Seattle, and work in Southern California. I skipper a sailing ship, I used to own, WN RAGLAND, pictured earlier in this string, and featured when I owned her, in Yachting Magazine, back in the March of 2011 issue. Her original owner now owns her again, and I do 100% of the work on her from sailing her, to her engine room, building her new masts and rig in 2014, and sewing her sails. Additionally, there is a third wooden collector item in the mix that I am repowering and restoring.
Sometimes I am caught with a boat in San Francisco (the collector item restoration), my boat Sovereign, which was in Seattle, and WN Ragland, here in California.
This was the case in 2019. I had to go to sea on WN Ragland. I decided to put my boat on the market. I came back from sea. I took my boat off the market and cruised the PNW for a while.
To further complicate things, there is a place called "Boaters Resource" it is a scam site that lists other business's activity, then sells advertising based on lifted listings. An old listing from a Canadian broker, who had Sovereign listed prior to my buying her is still visible on that site. I have tried repeatedly to contact them to no avail. No phone number, no address, and their contact us button does not function.
I happened to be cruising on Sovereign early this year when Covid lock downs struck. I was in Washington and it was a tight lock down. I spent several months on my boat, unable to see my kids and their kids. I then came down the coast on my boat and have been working to collect the fleet in one location. Unfortunately, that location is 1100 miles from my family. Being unable to commute back and forth on Alaska Airlines, as I used to do, here I sit with three boats in my care.
I am spread a bit thin right now, and I miss time with my family.
I have provided twice my rationale, including specifics on direct brand/model to brand/model pricing comparisons. Further, I owned my own wooden boat brokerage, and closed it so that I could do what my clients do, and spend more time cruising and doing the work I love. I was, and continue to be successful in the yacht business. I have some clients that I buy for, because of my history with them as well. I am immersed in this business.
I would agree that my boat coming on and off the market is a failed market attempt, due to over pricing, and my desire to find a "sucker" as you call it; but then we would both be wrong.
I appreciate your compliment on my boat, and you are right. You are offensive. You complimented my boat, and actually jump right past that and insulted me.
I am 62 now, and healthy enough to handle the 100 year old sailing ship at sea, and she is a handful---my boat is easy, I drive her in my jammies. But in 10 or so years, I will be a has-been. For now, I am living my dreams.
You see, Dan, I have sold too many boats for widows, whose husbands waited too long to finally buy their dream boat. There is one boat that comes to mind, a really cool Tayana 42 pilothouse that I sold three times, twice for widows.
Those guys were dreamers and shoppers, as we say in the business, as opposed to clients and buyers. Dreamers is a good word, we all do it. In high ticket sales circles, the word shoppers is a not a compliment. They were selfish. They didn't have the balls to do it while they were able, waited too long, reading magazines, going to boat shows, and wasting commissioned sales people's time. They then bought a boat they were too old to drive and burdened their widows with a boat that rarely, if ever left the slip.
The only opinion regarding pricing I value,is the person that steps up, makes an offer in writing with earnest money deposited, regardless of the size of that offer. Wooden yacht and ship owners are different than other types of yachts. Without one exception in twenty years, the first question when I present an offer has NEVER been the usual "how much and when"; it is ALWAYS who is the buyer. Have they had boats before? I have never seen a wooden boat deal go through when the buyer uses knit-picking this and that, nickel and diming the seller. If the seller does not have faith that the buyer is right for the boat, the deal never goes through. Price is secondary. These boats are worth what they are worth, and do not depreciate, like a model year 2006 boat does.
In closing, I have provided comps on real boats and real deals here in my responses for you and others here. I have even compared Sovereign to new builds. There is only one Sovereign of Malahide, and there may very well be only one buyer for Sovereign. People who have been aboard know what she is. That buyer is not going to care what brand plotters are on the boat. A real buyer will offer what he or she can afford, and I will consider it. That's the way it works, based on my twenty years of doing this.
As I said, I am on my way too fast to becoming a has-been, but I will take that any day over being a never-been. You know......a shopper.
Good luck with your shopping, Dan. Merry Christmas to you, and please make my Christmas a bit more tolerable by keeping your unsolicited opinions, incorrect assumptions, and thoughts to yourself.
