Boat Comparison Spreadsheet for Purchase Decision

[HankOnthewater]

Years ago I made spreadsheet that enabled me to compare reasonably well various models of boats. I used about 20 criteria and allocated a weighing factor for each of them for my requirements, purpose.

Each boat ended up with a score, lowest was around 170 points, highest was 320 points. Then I divided a 1/1000 of the price (and add-in cost like delivery, known repairs etc) by the points.

That gave a dollar figure how much each point was costing me, figures ranging approx between $500 and $1000. Noting that each point was (part of) a desired feature.

This worked for me, and funnily enough I purchased one of the 2 boats that scored 320.

However it was not the numbers what decided the purchase. It was the thinking hard what I really needed and wanted. And with making such spreadsheet the process became much clearer, and then easier.

[carlosproa]

I would look forward to your results. You already own a Privilege 482, interesting to understand your perspective of what makes you walk away from this model to your next.

[django37]

Very true:
"Spread sheet guys know that they need accurate information to punch into their computers. Sadly for them, however, the light ship weight advertised by builders is the approximate weight of the boat before they add on a single option, the tender, the spares, etc. In all my years of yacht brokering I’ve never weighed a production catamaran that came in anything close to lightship weight. The older design Catana 471, for example, was said to weigh 26,000 lbs. One of our customers weighed his last year and it came in over 33,000 lbs. Just yesterday, during a survey in Greece, we hauled out a Catana 582 with an advertised weight of 23 tons. The crane operator scaled her in at 28 tons.

A few years ago a gentleman hired me to serve as his buyer broker and became infatuated with a Sunreef 70. I explained to him that such a boat was ideal for charter, a true palace of luxury inside, but he had best not be hoping for high performance. He begged to differ because he had gone to some website that calculates catamaran performance based on advertised numbers and was told it would consistently sail at 12 knots. Having sailed one of these yachts in a sea trial it was abundantly clear to me he picked up some very bad information."
When a yard has built many cats of a type, you can better trust the weight given in the specifications. My Lagoon 380, built # 463, is only 20 kgs overweight

[teneicm]

Originally Posted by carlosproa

I would look forward to your results. You already own a Privilege 482, interesting to understand your perspective of what makes you walk away from this model to your next.

This is actually a bit of a zombie thread from way back in 2011. We bought a Privilege 482 in 2012, sailed it around the world and just sold it this August.