Selling a yacht in New Zealand

Created by doina. Last modified on 2006-04-26 14:05:59
Topic: Cruising Information
Countries: New Zealand

We had a 2 year time window for a sabbatical cruise with our family, and decided to spend more time in the South Pacific rather than “rush” around the world after leaving the Med. Consequently, following arrival in New Zealand, we were faced with the options of shipping our 61ft Nordia back to Europe as deck load on a freighter, or sell her in Auckland. Neither shipping by Dockwise (for price rea-sons), nor a professional delivery on her own keel (wear & tear, risk) were an option.

So we decided to arrange for shipping back to the Med, but first try to sell locally before the cut-off date in June. Already from Tonga we made arrangements with AllBoat brokerage in Auckland for a listing of our yacht for sale, pending our arrival in Opua, NZ. We were pleasantly surprised by the lower broker commission rates compared to Europe or North America, and also by the friendly and professional handling of the sales process by the brokers, who had been recommended by a fellow cruiser. We had a contract in place 3 months after listing, and a completed sale a couple of weeks later, after I had flown down from Europe to Auckland for seatrials and survey. All other aspects were handled by Keiran and Terry of AllBoat www.allboat.co.nz

without any problems, including looking after the yacht while we were away. Since our arrival, customs NZ had changed their approach to the sale of foreign yachts, which made the process quite straightforward.

So we did not ship the yacht back to Europe with Oceanbridge in Auckland as originally planned www.oceanbridge.co.nz but they also provided packaging for and transport of our personal belongings and equipment from NZ back to our home. While in NZ, Gulf Harbour Marina www.gulf-harbour.co.nz 30 min. north from Auckland was our place of choice, a very safe, friendly and clean marina, with all trades on site and very conveniently located. All in, a very pleasant ending to a memorable family cruise.

Wolfgang Reymann, SY Wetnose