In early May of 2018, Global Marine was contacted by an owner of a 2008 70 foot Sunseeker Manhattan, which was damaged in Hurricane Irma. The boat was on land, stored on a set of chocks, when the storm hit and knocked it into a neighboring sailboat. The Sunseeker sustained $75,000 worth of fiberglass damage, as well as other cosmetic damage to seats, cushions, etc. Recently, the boat’s owner contacted Global Marine because he had heard about our reputation for as a source to quickly and fairly sell unwanted boats. He knew he couldn’t go through the traditional brokerage route based on the history of the boat and the cost of the worked needed bring it up to a marketable condition.
When he called us, Joe explained our process, which is fast, simple and efficient. He also gave the owner a purchase price and a commitment that it would not be renegotiated regardless of what was found on the survey. The seller and Global Marine agreed to go to contract. Joe quickly set up an engine survey and a hull survey. We were unable to sea-trial the boat the day of survey due to damage to the props and struts, so Global Marine paid to have the repairs as an advance on the purchase price so the seller incurred no out-of-pocket expenses. Once the boat was finally sea-trialed, we closed the sale.
At this point, we hired a captain to bring the boat to our yacht center in St. Petersburg where we had a six person, full-time crew perform a complete paint job on the boat and a full 1,000 hour service as well as addressing the punch list items from the survey. In the brief 2-week period we had it under contract with the seller and were able to also put the boat under contract with a new buyer who got a great purchase price.
This success story is indicative of the emerging trend of sellers bypassing the traditional brokerage process and coming straight to Global Marine. Sellers are choosing this route because of our extensive network and our reputation of being quick, fast and efficient. In this situation we did what we always do – we kept our promise and did not renegotiate the deal even though we found items during the survey. The seller was able to settle up with his insurance company for the remaining proceeds and we ended up with a great boat that we presold before we even had it closed. This was a win-win for everyone involved.
