It’s a huge life achievement to invest in a catamaran and take it cruising. However, like all good things they ultimately come to an end, so when it’s time to sell, especially when cruising in remote locations, there are some questions and checks you need to ask yourself so it doesn’t become a long, drawn out experience that costs you much more than you had bargained or budgeted for. After all, for many a cruising catamaran is the biggest purchase outside of the family home. So the process needs to be treated with the same amount of respect, seriousness and professionalism to get a good result that doesn’t tarnish your adventure.

It might feel tempting to list it yourself on Facebook and take a punt and cut out the middlemen…but if the phone doesn’t ring and the boat doesn’t sell, you might end up with a very costly burden with a lacklustre misfired marketing campaign that ultimately devalues your boat. If you do end up with a buyer, how do you handle legals, safe transfer of funds, currencies, registration and transfer of title, surveys and handling disagreements, and avoid getting taxed along the way! It can be a minefield.

With over 500 catamarans sold and 25 years industry experience selling new and used catamarans in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the South Pacific, here are a few pointers.

Firstly, let’s go back to marketing 101…The 4 P’s…Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Product (Presentation)

Just like selling your house, we need to present it like an open house both for photographs and videos that will be used for advertising, but also for inspections. This means beds need to be made up, clutter packed away, stylising of the galley and saloon ideal and if you have some nice hero shots while cruising in an ideal bay, these need to come out.

We also want to remove potential objections that might come up during an inspection or later survey. Cosmetic issues are often the cheapest to repair but have the biggest impact when judging the condition of a boat for a new buyer. Repairs or replacement of upholstery, biminis, clears and getting the boat polished, antifouled and any corrosion or surface rust removed. Get any repairs to sails done in advance, clean out the toilets so they don’t have bad odour.

Any other issues that you have been putting off are best to take care of up front as they will likely come up during a survey or inspection and can either drag out the selling process or cost you more in negotiating an outcome.

At Multihull Central we recommend all boats have a survey so the customer knows what they are getting and it’s not uncommon for defects to be raised. Our approach is if they are on the inventory and relate to seaworthiness of the boat, they need to be made good by the owner. If it is wear and tear or cosmetic, that’s part and parcel with a second-hand boat and it’s on the buyer.

Price

So your boat is looking, smelling and operating beautifully and ready to go on the market. So you have a quick look online at similar boats to see what they are asking…great you have a price…wrong. What people ask for their boats internationally and what they actually sell for can be quite different. Some include local taxes for their boats in their respective countries, some sit on the market for years before they sell and others sell off market. That’s why it’s critical to get some market intelligence in the form of sold boat data that shows you what the market is actually doing. This can come in the form of reports from Yachtworld that provide internationally sold boat data exclusively to their yacht brokers, or from direct anecdotal selling data an active broker may have from other previous sales. Multihull Central for example has selling data that spans well over a decade of catamaran sales and subscribes to Yachtworld for their services for this reason.

What’s the issue if you price too high? Well you miss the golden window of heightened activity for the boat when more than one buyer might take an interest which puts upward pressure on the price. The most active and informed buyers will sit back until they feel the boat approaches their price expectations, or market value. They will know if they missed out on another sale what the market is. The next best gauge is an offer on the boat. The old adage ‘the first offer is often the best offer’ has some merit as it’s usually the buyers in the market that have missed another boat willing to make an offer. You don’t have to accept it, but it’s market information all the same.

We also see lots of online activity on listings that are attractive, however if they are priced too high the leads just don’t materialise. Before long you need to reset with a new marketing campaign and reduced price closer to the market…the holding costs during this time might be considerable so it’s worth getting to the point in the first attempt rather than a long protracted campaign. Other factors that can determine demand in the market include seasons…with the onset of spring, the sun comes out and the warmer wind blows in…or if in the opposite hemisphere, winter sets in and sailing off in warm tropical locations becomes highly appealing. So let’s talk about the boat’s Place.

Place

Place covers both your distribution strategy to market and in the case of selling a boat, the physical location.

The actual location can play a significant role in a successful sale. Ideally the boat is located close to an active buying market where there is a mature well-funded customer base or where it’s easy for the market to fly in to see the boat and there is some marine industry to help resolve any issues to complete the boat purchase and destinations to sail to.

In our part of the world, that might mean Sydney Harbour or the Gold Coast — both locations have international airports, excellent marine industry services and facilities and a well established buying market with the Queensland coast offering island hopping inside the Great Barrier Reef. Our marina in Sydney caters to catamarans and is a display of catamarans every day, while our office at the Boat Works Gold Coast offers discounted hardstand storage or in-water marina storage. The services are second to none.

For visiting international boats, Australia has strict import rules preventing us from promoting boats locally unless they are imported.

Other locations such as Whangarei and Opua in New Zealand are only a few hours drive from Auckland international airport and have excellent local marine industry support with our resident team in touch with excellent skippers and boat builders. Port Opua in the Bay of Islands offers plenty to explore and is the gateway to the Pacific Islands.

New Zealand has been more flexible in their import/export rules for cruising vessels and this has not been an issue to date, however it is well worth checking with your local broker.

Then Fiji is in the heart of the Pacific with limited marine industry resources, but still some with Vuda Marina for example offering haulout and some boat repair services with our local broker onsite to help manage this. If the boat is sold and bought between two foreigners and the boat is expected to exit, then tax should not apply here, though you should consult with your local contact as we obviously can’t offer formal advice on this.

There are other locations such as Langkawi in Asia that are tax-free destinations where we often sell boats also.

The myth that all boats must be transported back to France to sell however is not true, as we continue to sell boats in the South Pacific every year to customers from Europe, North America and Australasia.

When it does come time to sell, an experienced broker like Multihull Central can assist with trust accounts in various currencies, wholesale exchange rates if a transfer between currencies is required, legally binding contracts, referrals for experienced surveyors, skippers and shipwrights and ultimately provide an arms-off space between you and the buyer to help consider offers and negotiate a result. It’s so easy for a deal to fall over due to concerns or misgivings through a survey and an experienced broker really works hard here to help negotiate an outcome that satisfies all. Once the deal is confirmed, funds go into escrow and the process of settlement is planned, working through clear transfer of title is also guided by a broker with alignment of the deletion certificate, bill of sale and funds transfer crucial so everyone feels secure and safe to proceed.

Our experience selling new boats for Seawind, Outremer, HH Catamarans, Garcia, Aquila and others also means we have accounting checks and balances in place to help with secure transfer. How people work through this alone is very concerning in the world of scams and fraud.

Promotions

This is all about getting your boat seen by people actively in the market and for them to clearly understand its value and inclusions. At Multihull Central we combine a marketing mix in an attempt to reach as many people in a very targeted niche globally. We do this with the following:

Online advertising on…

• Advertising Aggregators including Yachtworld (appeals to an international audience due to their market dominance and strong SEO — if you google a model of a boat for sale it will often show up here first). But this is VERY expensive and not available to private advertisers. Other sites we advertise on include Boatsales, Boatsonline and Yachthub.
• Multihull Central — our new website is highly optimised for catamaran buyers and will often show up immediately under the big advertising aggregators. However we have other resources from our Book ‘Seabbaticals’, online articles and videos and services to cater directly to our buyers. In fact we have an ecosystem of services including training on catamarans, holidays and membership to our fleet of charter catamarans, shipwright and aftersales service. So we have lots to offer directly.
• YouTube: We post informative videos about catamarans that have attracted over 5 million views and nearly 30,000 subscribers. We will often create informative videos and professionally shot videos for quality boats that our customers love due to how much information you can pack in quickly. These show up on google search results and are referred to customers watching other sailing channels.
• Social Media: We find video reels are also most popular on our Facebook and Instagram posts, while we share the images and listing posts into Facebook groups that we manage such as ‘Catamarans Buy & Sell’ that has over 30,000 subscribers.
• eDMs (Electronic Direct Mail): We have over 10,000 subscribers to our ‘Multihull Monthly’ newsletter that highlights boats for sale and other industry news. With an average open rate of 40% it’s a very active group with customers from all over the globe subscribed.
• Boat Shows — We attend many major boat shows for our new boats that brings us into touch with many customers.
• Print Media — we also advertise in selected magazines such as Multihulls World (France) and Island Cruising’s magazine.

There is plenty to consider here and it’s important stuff when it comes time to sell your most prized asset. We have put this into a 7 Step Guide that you can action. But if you want a free strategy session and boat valuation, please get in touch with one of our expert brokers below:

Brent Vaughan — Sydney — brent@multihullcentral.com

Tom Adams — Fiji — tom@multihullcentral.com

Jason Brosnahan – Whangarei, Opua, New Zealand — jasonb@multihullcentral.com

Steve Thomas — Nelson, New Zealand — steve@multihullcentral.com

Philip Fontaine — Pittwater — philip@multihullcentral.com

Stephen Mackay — Gold Coast — Stephen@multihullcentral.com

Andrew Crawford — Brisbane — andrew@multihullcentral.com

Terry Jones — Melbourne — terry@multihullcentral.com

Website: www.multihullcentral.com | phone +61 2 9810 5014 | info@multihullcentral.com

About the Author:

Brent Vaughan has had 25 years industry experience selling new and used catamarans including 13 years as the Sales and Marketing Manager at Seawind Catamarans before founding Multihull Central in 2013. Over 500 catamarans have since been sold by Multihull Central, while its sister company Charter Boat Central manages a fleet of 9 charter boats on Sydney Harbour offering training and experiences on Sydney Harbour. Brent is the author of ‘Seabbaticals‘, owns a cruising charter catamaran and races competitively.