Greetings from Oz
We're back on home soil after 8 weeks up in Borneo with the ongoing refitting of our new 44 Antigua ketch Australis. We're chuffed to now have a new distribution board and a total 12v & 240v rewiring of the entire vessel after a conversion from the original 110. There's a new wind generator atop of the mizzen, new fridge and freezer, repacked stuffing box, additional engine battery and a nav pod up at the helm. Still struggling with the hydraulic steering powered auto helm which is off line at present and probably a victim of our rewiring but we did get in two 4 day cruises out to the islands offshore! The next job is ripping out all the gear behind the nav desk and a neat reinstall which gets underway next week. We're currently putting together a couple of small blogs with images of the projects we have been doing which we'll post soon.
Speaking of posting, we've had our 33' Alajuela cutter Mico on the market now for approx. 5 months through one of the online sales sites
Yachts & Boats for Sale in Australia & New Zealand | Yachthub and a small youtube movie. 2500 hits but no calls or responses.
Sure - we really have not put a whole lot of effort into selling her as she is now equipped with everything we'd ever need including a brand new fully battened main and integrated boom mounted sail bag, wireless remote auto steering and anchor winch control. A big part of us would still like to keep her for Australian cruising while we commute back and forth to Borneo exploring the South China Sea in Australis, but ongoing costs such as double insurances and berthing fees are pretty painful.
So
I'm sitting on the plane coming into Sydney and it occurs to me 'you idiot! - I'm a graphic & web designer - surely I could create something to hopefully move things along'
After a couple of weeks of piss farting about we just launched a site for Mico -
Home
and would appreciate any feedback from the forum.
We've all had occasion to be both on the buying and selling end of yachting. We've all experienced the looking and the dreaming and the trying to convince our partners that 'this is the one' Conversely - many of us have experienced the agony of a million 'tyre kickers' , false leads, ridiculous offers and the reluctance to sell our pride and joy at a marked down price which in no way reflects her true value, or the time, effort, love and money we have put into her.
It's never a good time to sell a yacht but I'd be interested in a possible discussion on how we can best optimise our efforts to communicate the true value of our vessels and what has worked for us. What information do we look for when contemplating a yacht purchase? What finally convinces us to go the next step? - apart from winning Lotto that is!
I have directed the content of the Mico site at the first time or relatively new buyer. I figure that a seasoned yachtie will know what they want and will recognise a good deal when they see one. We also wanted to personalise it a bit more rather than just cold specifications and details. If our web attempt gives you any ideas on how you might tackle your own yacht sale - even better.
One good thing that has already come out of this exercise has been the interest of a number of yacht owners in the CMS based site we have built and we're currently exploring creating 'rentable' CMS yacht sale sites that individuals can upload images and text to create their own personalised site without having to have any knowledge or experience in web design or programming. You'd simply suggest a domain name, receive the CMS site together with a small tutorial and walk through, upload your text and images and pay a monthly hosting fee until it's sold. After that we simply turn off that site.
With all due respect to yacht brokers, no one will be able to communicate the joy, love and experiences and true value of our vessels more than ourselves - it's worth a thought.
Fair winds,
Mico
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