Offshoreonly.com - Customs/police Auctions

Kevin,

they are not myths but there are a few problems with them. firstly, those boats are not really your average pleasure powerboats. most of them have been modified to accomodate larger fuel tanks, interiors have been ripped out to reduce weight and increase "cargo space", cockpits have been strengthened and more often than not covered with a hard top... and all this was done with only functionality in mind which means that those boats look terrible to say the least. secondly, not all of them are structurally sound as they have been run harder than any of us can imagine. running hard in the ocean for your own personal amusement is one thing but running hard away from CG to save your ass is quite another. and there is the biggest catch: in all cases i was informed about, you cannot test the boat, not even fire the engines, just look at it after you have deposited some form of financial guarantee which allows you to bid. viewing of the lots is usually quite short which means that it is very hard to correctly estimate the value. so you are pretty much gambling in that case. and don't count on government personnel there to give you much information. usually they do not know anything about the boat or its condition. i mean, sometimes they do not even know the manufacturer, the year, whether the engines will fire or not... that sort of essential info. very rarely do you get a nice boat taken from an "amateur" smuggler who just wanted to improve his income a bit. these are usually nice pleasure powerboats like yours and mine but my experience is that this comes up very rarely. you're better off seeing your local dealer and striking a deal with him, especially in this economic climate.