Desperate to get started, can’t find a damn boat!

[GoneBy2026]

Stuck in one of the best sailing spots, NZ, and I can’t find a boat to buy. Budget is around $20-30k (15k-ish USD). Help!!!! Trademe.co.nz is one of the main places boats are advertised here.

Where are all the boats!???

[Fore and Aft]

GB26 you really have to give us a few more details than that. You have your budget now what length yacht were you looking for?
There's 19 yachts in your budget on Trade Me, there are some real sweet designs amongst them. I see there is a Bruce Askew yacht in the mix. I used to take my yacht designs into Bruce's design office and have a good chin wag with him.
If you find a yacht you like, it's easy enough to get it delivered to your location. NZ is only a small country.
Cheers

[GoneBy2026]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

GB26 you really have to give us a few more details than that. You have your budget now what length yacht were you looking for?
There's 19 yachts in your budget on Trade Me, there are some real sweet designs amongst them. I see there is a Bruce Askew yacht in the mix. I used to take my yacht designs into Bruce's design office and have a good chin wag with him.
If you find a yacht you like, it's easy enough to get it delivered to your location. NZ is only a small country.
Cheers

Fair point on the details! I'm looking to circumnavigate, heading away sometime in the next couple years. So something over 35ft would be suitable, possibly with a partner, probably singlehanded.

NZ is most definitely a small country, and out of the way, so most of all the good boats have sailed away! And lots of boats aren't due here till next year as covid put a stop to crossing here.

[Fore and Aft]

GB26 no wonder you can't find an offshore boat with that budget. I hate to break it to you but any boat that sails to NZ will probably not be given away for $30,000 unless it's worn out.
This Nova 28 has potential, but unless you double your budget it's going to be hard to find what you want.
Cheers
https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/b...ing/3490632626

[GoneBy2026]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

GB26 no wonder you can't find an offshore boat with that budget. I hate to break it to you but any boat that sails to NZ will probably not be given away for $30,000 unless it's worn out.
This Nova 28 has potential, but unless you double your budget it's going to be hard to find what you want.
Cheers
https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/b...ing/3490632626

Yeah, i understand $30k is probably low-balling it here. The problem i find is that as soon as i jump up into the 50-80k range, it seems to make more sense to look abroad. There seem to be some "bargains" up in Tahiti, but they're more than likely to be a curse. Take this brokers selection as an example: https://raiatea-yacht.com/index.php?page=voiliers

[Fore and Aft]

GB26 I had a look at that website and the Moody 35 was my favourite. Some of those cheaper yachts as a marine surveyor just gave me a shiver up my spine.
They seem worn out cruising yachts that are going to give you so much grief even if they are a "Bargain"
Cheers

[GoneBy2026]

Oh yeah, there's some real floating nightmares for sure. That Bavaria Sportline 350 and the other cheaper 40 footers, oh man.

[boatman61]

I agree on the Nova 28... she looks to have all the essentials and more, the only things I would add is a small watermaker like a Spectra Katadyn PowerSurvivor for the long ocean passages and an electrical AP in case the wind vane breaks.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by GoneBy2026

Yeah, i understand $30k is probably low-balling it here. The problem i find is that as soon as i jump up into the 50-80k range, it seems to make more sense to look abroad. There seem to be some "bargains" up in Tahiti, but they're more than likely to be a curse. Take this brokers selection as an example: https://raiatea-yacht.com/index.php?page=voiliers

Actually you can find many great boats at bargain prices in polynesia. Lots of people end up selling their boat there after their first long blue water passage when they find that passages are not them

[TrentePieds]

GB26 said: "...and I can’t find a boat to buy. Budget is around $20-30k (15k-ish USD). Help!!!!"

What an interesting first ever post :-)!

Here in the Salish Sea you could most certainly find a boat for US$15K. Not a boat to cross oceans in, but certainly a boat perfectly adequate for the benign water and the benign weather regime we have here inside that enormous breakwater we call Vancouver Island. And a boat suitable for "getting your feet wet" :-)

Three or four summers ago, a Fast Passage 39 (designed by the renowned naval architect William Garden and built by Philbrook's, a first-rate yard on Vancouver Island, sold for Can$65K. She was straight in from a circumnavigation, fully found for circumnavigating and ready to go again the day tomorrow!

As Carsten (who is a circumnavigator) suggests, many, who have fallen victim to the same dream you confess to, have decided, once they've had a taste of ocean crossings, that the only appropriate vessel for that task is a Boeing 747 :-)!

So here is the help you ask for :-): Spend a little money on air fare. Come to where the REAL cruising pleasures are to be found, i.e. in coastwise crusing. Buy a boat that is suitable for learning on, such as, say, a 50 year old Columbia 26 which sails remarkably well and is dirt cheap and very simple to maintain. Keep it free of modern gizmos of every kind so you will not be distracted from learning the seafarer's craft from the ground up - so to speak.

We in this forum can help, but only if you augment your dream with some actual knowledge of what seafaring is all about, and only if you have the humility to understand that dream and knowledge do not come as a "package deal"! The function of the former must be to sustain you while you do the grinding hard work of acquiring the latter!

All the best to you.

TrentePieds

[HeinSdL]

Being superstitious myself, I would also be inclined to not call my future boat 'a damn boat', it may set the relationship between yourself and said boat of on a volatile start! :-)

[GreenWave]

There is always a boat available. Sometimes you need a bigger boat, sometimes you need a better boat, and sometimes you just need to be realistic.