Bump's World

SELLING YOUR YACHT IN 2025



In the 1980's I worked for Sailboats Northeast and we sold mostly new boats. In the late 1980's going into the 1900's the new boat market collapsed due to the banking crisis and a federal luxury tax on yachts.

I realized that the used boat market (brokerage) would be essential for yacht business going forward.

I left Sailboats Northeast in 1990 and started New Wave Yachts. My business plan was half new boat sales, half used boats, half sailboats and half powerboats. I thought I covered the market pretty well.

In the late 1980's the internet was growing in leaps and bounds and a company named BUC introduced the first internet yacht search system.

I knew very little about computers and I really struggled to in put listings into the BUC system. I always needed help from computer people. BUC had a lot of problems and was expensive.

When I started New Wave Yachts I could not afford the BUC system. I heard of a new internet listing system called Yacht World. They were 10 percent the cost of BUC and even though my computer skills were still very bad, they were easier to use. Over a period of a couple of years the industry dumped BUC and all went to Yacht World. Yacht World got better with the listings management and everything looked good.

At some point the people who started Yacht World sold out to capital venture people who quickly raised the price.

Yacht World has continued to raise the price, to the point of being insane. Their plan is to gain more revenue while their customers (brokers), scramble to find alternatives. This increase revenue allows them to flip Yacht World at a big gain and leave the new owners with a big mess.

The rats are leaving the sinking ship.

Several sites have come up to pick up the where yacht world has failed. I will join the sites with the future in mind. Rightboat.com and Yachtmarket.com show lots of promise and I will look at other new sits also.

There is no future for Yacht World. Over 33% of yacht companies have already dumped Yacht World.

Look to the future.

Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com

Bump Wilcox