Buying your Boat

A word from Leslie Quarrier, CPYB, Owner and Lead Broker:

Boating guarantees wonderful memories. Boating provides ‘Vacations on Demand’.

“I offer comprehensive knowledge of fine power and sailing yachts, among those are: luxury yachts, Downeast and express cruisers, trawlers and sailboats, including Grand Banks, Eastbay, Sabre, MJM, San Juan, Hinckley and many other quality builders. My extensive experience with Grand Banks and Eastbays has gained me recognition throughout the industry.”

“As a Certified Professional Yacht Broker, I am a past CPYB Certification Advisory Board Member, member of YBAA,  and Member of the International Yacht Brokers Association (IYBA). My job is to make every boat purchase, sale, or donation, smooth sailing and businesslike, in homeport, or elsewhere.”

Working with you to locate a boat

This Selene 53 finds a new owner

As your representative, Essex Yacht Sales offers a comprehensive range of services. These are particularly valuable for busy, discerning, professional clients, who have limited available time and wish to preserve their privacy. Our professional advice is also welcomed by new boaters, or those looking for specialty boats. Essex Yacht Sales will:

• Establish precisely the type of boat that will meet the your needs. This will include many factors such as location, intended use, size of family or party, owner-captain or professional captain, when built, price, accommodations, equipment, cruising speed, engine type, drive type, fuel consumption, builder
• Help you to understand and weigh the various elements that contribute to the total costs of ownership:

• For example, a twin-engine boat will obviously have higher engine service costs, than a single-engine boat. Certain complex drive-trains require regular attention. Canvas and plastic glazing will require replacement from time to time. Bright work must be regularly varnished to maintain its pristine appearance and the value of the boat
• Depreciation will vary from one brand to another. Quality brands hold their value best, even though their purchase price may be higher.   A careful owner who invests modestly and regularly in preventive, professional, maintenance, will typically earn this investment back, and more, as reduced depreciation
• Certain standing costs apply to all boats: property taxes, State registration, insurance, dockage or mooring fees, washing and detailing, winterizing, spring commissioning and winter storage (in the North-East)
• The cost of capital employed, where a boat is purchased for cash, or the cost of financing, where there is a boat mortgage
• Fuel is a variable cost, but except for the most avid boaters, or for long-distance cruising, it is rarely a significant part of the total cost of ownership

• Search for vessels that meet your criteria. Undertake all the research, leg-work and pre-vetting, presenting you with a qualified short-list of excellent boats
• Research competitive market pricing and recorded actual sale data. Provide a complimentary market report
• Negotiate a fair deal, keeping the Buyer and Seller at arm’s length
• Advise and help with selecting competent and reputable marine and engine surveyors
• Coordinate all schedules for the survey, schedule haul or launch with the boat yard, set up the sea trial
• Renegotiate, if necessary, price/terms based on any survey findings
• Ensure that all funds are held in a segregated client escrow account until the closing
• Perform title search, check for any existing liens, obtain USGC abstract of title
• Prepare official closing documents
• Satisfy any and all existing loans/leans against the vessel prior to seller receiving net proceeds
• Advise on sales tax laws that will vary by state
• Prepare USCG documentation application and state registration paperwork
• Secure proper deletion of registry of foreign flagged vessels and provide USCG deletion for vessels sold to non US citizens.
• Assist non-US citizens buy and operate boat for use in US waters.
• Provide finance and insurance options
• Advise on shipping options where applicable, or help with securing a reputable USCG licensed delivery captain and crew
• Advise on slips, moorings and winter storage

A great day to go sailing in your new boat

Essex Yacht Sales charges no fee to our clients for buying services. We are compensated through sharing the listing broker’s commission on the completion of a successful transaction. This is paid out of the seller’s funds and does not affect the sale price.

To protect this arrangement, with all parties acting transparently and in good faith, Buyers should not contact other brokers directly. In the event you do, however, you should immediately state that you are working with Essex Yacht Sales as your representative.

Check out more resources at Discover Boating, a resource of the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA)

NORTH VERSUS SOUTH!

Working in the different regions, we constantly see a difference between a ‘Florida’ boat and a ‘North East’ or ‘Great Lakes’ boat. Cold water boats typically have been used very lightly for at most six months out of the year, and are completely out of the water for the remainder of the time. This means the anti-fouling, the bottom paint and the gel coat are far better preserved; the varnish and furnishings not harmed by the excessively hot sun and UV rays; and most importantly – we see far fewer engine hours for any given year.

So we always recommend that Florida buyers contact Essex Yacht Sales. An ‘older’ northern boat can offer great value compared with a ‘younger’ southern boat.

Buying a Boat:
An Uptown Girl’s former Down Easter finds a happy home in Essex, Connecticut.

With permission from Soundings, May 27, 2015, written by Steve Knauth, photos by permission of Peter Mahoney

Sweet Freedom Duffy 35 

The look is Down East, with a tall bow and sweeping sheer line, a traditional trunk cabin with eyebrow trim and an upright, open-sided wheelhouse. But this lobster boat hull is something else: a particular shade of blue that’s at once distinctive and alluring.

Sweet Freedom is a boat of a different color.

Once at the center of a celebrity divorce, the Duffy 35 built for supermodel Christie Brinkley enjoys a more private life these days, plying the waters of the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound as a family boat with owners Tom Pipoli and Charlie Klewin at the helm. “We enjoy the water the same as we did when we were kids,” says Pipoli, who lives in Chester, Connecticut, and bought the boat with Klewin, his friend and business partner, in 2009. “We slip into Hamburg Cove; we go watch the swallows; we raft-up with the Essex Yacht Club. It’s a wonderful people boat.”

“I love this boat,” says Leslie Quarrier, the broker who arranged the purchase. “I think her lines are striking, as is her beautiful color and her overall appearance. She’s unique.”

Says Klewin: “We drop the anchor, take a swim, have a picnic. We never get tired of it.”

Whirlwind deal

So how did Pipoli and Klewin, partners in the auto dealership Saybrook Buick-GMC, end up with Christie Brinkley’s lobster yacht? They happened to be looking for the right boat at the right time. “I had been after a picnic-style boat, something stable and roomy that could go out on the Sound and offshore, too,” says Pipoli, a lifelong boater who’s owned a variety of craft over the years. “I asked Leslie (Quarrier) to keep her eyes open.”

It was to be a memorable search. “There was, from start to finish, a true whirlwind aspect to it,” recalls Leslie. Peter Cook, Brinkley’s ex-husband, made the initial contact. Sweet Freedom, on the hard in Sag Harbor, New York, not far from the former couple’s East Hampton home, was ordered by the court in late 2008 to be sold. The listing price was $160,000. “I’d shown him a boat previously, and he called me to list Sweet Freedom. The moment it came up for sale, I gave Tom the listing. I told him, ‘This could be your perfect boat. ”

Complex negotiations began, involving Pipoli and Klewin and several other clients. At one point, there were four competing offers on the table. As things dragged on, the pressure mounted; it was time to act, and neither Pipoli nor Klewin had seen the boat in person. It took a plane ride to close the deal. At the 11th hour, Pipoli and Quarrier flew to Long Island, hopped a cab to the boat, made an inspection, and that was that. “I walked around it and said, ‘Sold!’ ” says Pipoli. “I wrote out a check right there.”

Klewin was vacationing in Florida when the deal was finalized. “Tom called and said he liked it — that was enough for me,” says Klewin. “That was in January [2009]. I didn’t see the boat in person until April, when Tom brought it over from Long Island.”

That’s when Pipoli’s wife, Rosanne, got her first sight of the boat — on that ride to her new home in Connecticut. “My reaction when I saw it was, ‘This is exactly the boat we have been looking for,’ ” she says. “It was a happy day.”

Klewin, too, liked what he saw. “There are a lot of Duffys around, but they’re not finished the way Sweet Freedom is,” he says. “And I love the color. I think if you saw a sample without seeing it on the boat, you’d say no way. But it works — it draws a lot of attention.”

Back in the water

Despite having sat on the hard for a few years, Sweet Freedom was in good shape, needing only a good cleanup and the cosmetic work one might expect after a layoff. (Brinkley reportedly paid to maintain the boat while it was in storage.) The 440-hp Yanmar CXM-ETE turbo diesel had less than 200 hours on it, and the boat has four high-end Stidd seats, including an electronically adjustable helm chair. Sweet Freedom was taken to Chester Point Marina on the river, where the brightwork was rejuvenated, new canvas was installed and the engine was serviced.

Before the summer 2009 launching, the new owners decided to keep that distinctive color — Pettit’s Bikini Blue — and the name, Sweet Freedom. “That’s what the boat is about, the freedom of the water,” says Pipoli. “That’s what you feel with this boat. You can put eight people on board and take a cruise on it to just about anywhere and not be concerned.”

Sweet Freedom Duffy 35

Quarrier was right when she called Sweet Freedom the perfect boat for her clients. It’s big

enough for jaunts to Block Island, Rhode Island, and Montauk, New York, or a weekend run across Long Island Sound for lunch at Claudio’s in Greenport, New York. Cruising speed is around 20 mph, and the top end is just under 30 mph. The wheelhouse can be closed in foul weather, and there’s a small galley and an enclosed head.

“It’s incredibly seaworthy,” says Klewin. “We’ve been through some rough seas, and she cuts through the water like a knife through butter. After all, the hull is made for offshore fishing.”

Sweet Freedom is ideal for the Connecticut River, too, well suited to sightseeing cruises. “There’s plenty of room to entertain, which is one of our favorite things to do on board,” says Rosanne Pipoli. “I’m particularly fond of the layout of the seats, with two in front and two behind. It makes for ideal viewing, besides being quite comfortable.”

With her Down East look, Bikini Blue color and celebrity past, Sweet Freedom is a package that pleases, says Klewin. And does he ever think, while enjoying a sunset cruise or a Sunday ride over to Greenport, about Christie Brinkley, who conceived of Sweet Freedom and guided its creation? Only rarely, he says.

But he does make one admission: “She certainly has great taste in boats.”

Confused by the dates in the Hull Identification Number (HIN)?

Except for very old boats, US Federal Regulations for pleasure boats require a HIN to be permanently marked on the transom, starboard side. This is normally molded in, for fiber glass boats.

The last two digits of the HIN are the Model Year: 10 means 2010. Although a model year runs from Aug 1 to July 31, the model year is deemed to be calendar year on July 31.

Example: A boat that leaves its place of manufacture, or is offered for sale, in December 2009, will have a model year of 2010, which is code 10.

The two digits before the last two of the HIN are the Month and Year of Certification: The first of these is a letter from A to L representing months January (A) to December (L). The second is a number representing the last digit of the calendar year. A boat certified G9 means July 2009 or July 2019. You can figure which decade this is, by checking the Model Year.

The Date of Certification cannot be earlier than the date construction begins, or later than the date the boat leaves the place of manufacture for the purposes of sale.

Like Rome, boats are not built in a day: Larger boats, complex boats, and yachts with finely finished interiors take some time to build, so it is very common to find different years, such as G910. This means the Date of Certification was July 2009 (most likely when the hull was molded), but it was completed and offered for sale Model Year 2010. Such a boat would be listed as 2010.