So just what does a seasoned charter captain, who is also a naval architect and yacht surveyor, look for when he sets out to buy a new boat?

The editors at Mad Mariner asked me to explain my thought process as I research and shop for a vessel. Looking back, I have owned one boat or another since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, more than a dozen boats over four decades. In fact, I am so accustomed to having a personal “command” that I feel naked when I don’t have a boat.

CAPTAIN ALAN HUGENOTI was looking for a single-engine fiberglass trawler with a single-owner pedigree. I was able to get pretty close. But about three years ago I sold my 16th personal boat, a carefully restored 1961 mahogany 33-foot cabin cruiser with twin Chrysler 318 engines. I parted with it during the spring buying frenzy, which is always a seller’s market, and banked the profits. I did not replace it at the time because I knew I was going to be spending much of the year out of town and would be unable to handle the maintenance and upkeep.

But it didn’t take long before I was aching for a new hull to call my own.

There is no magic formula when it comes to buying a boat. In fact, the key to getting a good deal is exceedingly simple, though it does take some hard work. You should understand your needs and the market; do enough research on your target boat to know exactly what you are buying; and do enough advanced preparation to be able to confidently make offers, write checks and obtain whatever leverage you can.

The best time to buy a boat is after Labor Day when there is traditionally a shortage of customers, and moorages open up as people haul their boats or trailer them for the winter. Sellers who didn’t find buyers the previous spring and summer know they will have to pay moorage fees until the buying season starts again, motivating them to consider any reasonable offer. That enhanced my purchasing leverage, along with the fact that I had cash in the bank from the previous boat’s sale. So I moved quickly.

FINANCING

Like any would-be boat owner, the first thing I had to do was establish a price range. Since my total investment in my previous vessel had been $27,000 – and I wanted to re-invest at the same level – I set $25,000 as my upper price limit. I also checked my liquid investments and available, low-percentage credit offers to make sure I had the ability to come up with the cash I needed a week after making an offer.

Knowing your cash position is important. Assumptions will get you in trouble. For example, you don’t want to make an offer on a $50,000 boat hoping to put $10,000 down and assuming you’ll get a loan for the rest. Because when you get to the bank you may find that interest rates have risen and suddenly you don’t qualify for a loan over $20,000. If you aren’t buying with cash, the lenders will always decide exactly how much boat you can afford in the current market.

To improve your buying position, you should pre-qualify for a loan. You can contact your bank or BoatUS Boat Finance to find out how to become pre-approved.

SELECTING A BOAT

I chose to buy a vessel that was more than 20 years old. This is because when you ignore inflation and temporary market spikes like the dot-com boom, you will find that the real market value of boats always drops off over the first 15 to 20 years, and the value hits a stable plateau that rarely drops any further.

If you are careful, you can purchase a boat that is at the bottom of its value curve. Later, as many of the identical sister ships are scrapped or fall apart, it may become a classic and its value may actually rise. The key here is to buy a well-built hull from a yard with an excellent long-term reputation, one that only built only a finite number of each model. Production boats with thousands of hulls on the water, like Searays and Bayliners, don’t often become classics because so many of them are built. But semi-custom fiberglass vessels may become commodities late in life.

I also expect to get my money back, plus a little bit extra, when I sell a boat. So I thought carefully about the current market. For the last 20 years, sailboats have had an edge over powerboats when it comes to resale value. Now, with the increasing cost of fuel, large -horsepower boats may fall farther out of favor.

I also had to consider my stage of life. I’m not as spry as I used to be, and although most of my boats have been cutters, ketches and schooners, sail no longer makes sense for me.

Although I love wood, and nearly all my prior hulls were wooden, I also decided to purchase a rare fiberglass classic because I no longer wanted to do all that restoration.

So, I began to look for power boats that would celebrate fuel economy. This moved me in the direction of trawlers, which are built for long-distance voyages and use as little fuel as possible.

After a week of looking I began to narrow my sights to single engine diesel trawlers with room for a second couple to cruise with my wife and me.

The final consideration was size. The majority of boats I have owned have been 30 to 36 feet, so I knew I liked that approximate size. But, because I live in San Francisco, I also wanted to find moorage near the city. I settled on Sausalito, where I found that 36 foot moorages were hard to find, but several were available at 32 feet and less. Since the parking situation in downtown Sausalito has been ample, I chose Clipper Yacht Harbor, in North Sausalito, where there is available free parking for my guests. I booked a 30 foot berth before I bought the boat.

Now, I was ready to look for the vessel: a single-engine diesel trawler that was made of fiberglass, less than 32 feet long and had accommodations for four.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

I collected all the listings I could find for vessels fitting my specs, both on the Internet and in yacht sales publications. All of the long-range (low horsepower, big fuel tank) cruising trawlers seem to be Asian-built, like Island Gypsy, Cheoy Lee Trawlers, CHB Trawlers and Nordhavn. As I identified the available boats, I began to aggressively comparison shop. Since all the hulls of the same age from a particular yard will have nearly the same price, I comparison shopped on the extras like navigation electronics, autopilots and other components. I also looked at each vessel to see which has the pristine interior and which need refurbishment.

Then it was time for a good talk with the brokers. I asked how long the vessels has been listed and whether there had been offers. I also asked if the boat’s previous owners had been verified. I like to find boats with just one previous owner. If he bought it new and owned it for a quarter century, then he took care of it. The economics also work in my favor. If I offer him half of the current market value, it will still be five times what he paid for the vessel a quarter century earlier - and he may be happy to make a profit on the sale.

BINGO!

I found a 1979 Cheoy Lee 28, with a single 80 HP Ford Lehman Diesel, teak decks throughout and fittings in stainless steel (including the propeller). The first owner bought it new and took excellent care of it for 24 years, adding continuous electronic upgrades. It had a Pathfinder radar, GPS, the original depth sounder and a fish finder, the original RDF, Benmar course setter, hydraulic steering and a battery bank minder.

At age 83, the original owner sold it to an interim owner, who mostly neglected it for four years and then listed it for sale. A year later, with no buyers, he lowered his price a couple of weeks before I arrived.

I looked closely at the moss growing on the north side of the canvas, the decks that had not seen teak oil in years, and the batteries that were nearly bone dry (each cell took more than a pint of water). These are the things that drive buyers away. But all these problems were fixable with a little soap and water and teak oil.

Then, I began to investigate aboard where I found a host of spare parts: Raw water pumps, fuel pumps, impellers, lube and fuel filters, fan belts, water purifier filters, extra batteries with a portable charger, and an electric dinghy motor, though there was no dinghy. All of the parts were put onboard by the original owner during the boat’s years of excellent maintenance.

The cold engine started on the first turn and did not smoke. The broker told me, and I later confirmed with people on the docks, that the boat had not left the slip in more than two years. Also, onboard records showed that last diesel fill-up took place the month before he purchased the boat, and yet the tanks had more than 150 gallons remaining. It was apparent that the interim owner never did any maintenance, but he had also never used the boat. Consequently, not much could have gone wrong in the previous four years. It was just simple neglect.

CAPTAIN ALAN HUGENOTShe had been neglected, but the vessel was sound.I asked the broker if the seller was buying another boat. When he said “no, he seems to be busy remodeling a house and wants to get out of boating,” I knew that the seller would probably jump at any reasonable offer. I sorted through the boat’s documents and found the registrations. All of them were in an envelope, right back to the boat’s original registration, with the sales tax listed on it. I used simple division to calculate what the interim owner had paid.

On the spot, I gave the broker a check for $2000 and said that I would deliver a firm offer in the morning, subject to sea trial, haul out and survey. But first I had to go back to my office and determine my offering price.

FIXING A PRICE

Using my surveyor’s pricing resources, I determined the boat’s real value. You can do this by doing research on the Internet to find the asking and sales prices for boats identical to the one you want to buy. Look at sites like YachtWorld.com, and make calls if you must.

It was my estimate that, with a little spit and polish, she would dress-out at above BUC value, which is one of the "blue book" estimates available to boaters. That would mean about 10 percent above the market price. Also, due to the shortage of available boats in Northern California, BUC allows an additional 10 percent premium above market. This means the fair market value when cleaned-up was between $35,000 and $39,000.

The interim owner had paid $25,000 for the boat four years before. He had been asking $30,000, but dropped his price to $25,000 because of the condition of the boat - and because he had seen no offers. I sharpened my pencil, weighed the odds of rejection and offered $21,500, which by my best instincts was a little more than half the boat’s true market value.

The following day the offer was accepted. The salesman said the seller had wanted to sell it for more, but was in a hurry to finish the deal. I skippered the boat to the yard 45 minutes away for the haul out, giving me a chance to sea trial the boat, and it checked out. Two weeks after starting the search, I had a boat that fit in my moorage and my budget.

The key to it was knowledge, research and preparation. I knew what type of boat I wanted, how she should be rigged, where she would be moored and about how much she should cost, all before I started looking. I used this knowledge to zero in quickly on the boats I wanted to see.

I then did my research on the boat that caught my eye. I found out the boat's story by talking to the salesman and folks on the dock, then verified it by looking at documentation and crawling through the boat itself. I was thorough, looking at everything from spare parts to the battery cells.

Finally, when I had determined to my satisfaction that the boat's story fit the profile I was looking for, I was prepared to act on it. Having reviewed my finances, I had the money and other resources ready to make an offer on the spot.

Hopefully, time will show that I made a good decision. Meanwhile, I have some work to do on the 28, and some good times ahead. Who knows. I may even make a little money down the road.

Capt. Alan Hugenot is a naval architect and marine surveyor based in San Francisco.