After trolling through yachthub for awhile now I have found a theme that I hope the more experienced here could answer.

Why does a 40ft yacht built in the early 80's ie 30+ year old S&S, Olsen, Halberg Rassey etc taking into account it has good condition sails, recent electrical/navigation upgrades and sound rigging only $20k - $30k cheaper than a 5 year old ( mid 2000's )Beneteau or Bavaria etc with similar age and condition rigging, electronics, sails etc.

I could list examples but it's pretty obvious if you look.

It's not really the price but I just thought the difference in price would be much more.

That said I find it strange some agents are still asking over $280k for a 35+ yr old GRP yacht regardless of make.

Cheers

I was reading a story about these guys who brought a boat in Australia (name of the design may have started with B) and were taking it back to England. They slipped the boat in Asia somewhere and when the boat was on the hardstand they had trouble opening the internal doors and cupboards. Apparently when the boat was resting on the keel the hull sagged around it slightly. Now the recent stories of keels coming off make me glad I have a boat built when, to quote the old Kelvinator advertising slogan "Built up to a standard, Not down to a price". There are plenty of newer (fancy) 40 footers around, but some are built for the "charter/short trip duration sailor" market with head room through out and lots of lay about room but bugger all storage. And some designs fix the problem of sailing performance on these extra roomy single and multi-hulled boats by putting big rigs up. Scary stuff.

Good luck with the search. By all means buy your boat where ever you want to, but if you buy your boat overseas, the rules say you can never ever again blame the government for our foreign debt.

Referring to profesionals in the boat building industry.
Boats with keel problems, experiencing the other problems too.
If you push to hard, mast is first to go,
keel ....production or design...cutting corners too much
...no excuses ...keel is part of the structure...