Three structural forces depressed BVI catamaran prices and froze the US buyer pool. We do the work in between and let you skip the friction. Here's exactly how that works.
Three depressors are pushing on BVI catamaran prices simultaneously. None of them are temporary. Together they create the spread that we capture and pass on as savings.
The Moorings, Sunsail, and Dream Yacht Charter all run 5-year fleet cycles. Every year hundreds of well-maintained, sub-3,000-hour catamarans hit the BVI brokerage market — phase-out complete, service records intact, ready to leave the fleet. This is the durable depressor: tariffs may shift, but the fleet cycle keeps churning.
The natural buyer is American — that's the deepest demand pool by an order of magnitude. But 2025 tariffs took the import duty from 1.5% to 20-25%. Add customs paperwork, ocean delivery coordination, USCG documentation, and an in-country surveyor relationship, and most DIY importers walk. The friction itself is the moat.
Fleet operators pay ongoing dockage and insurance on every unsold boat. Each cut they take comes off our cost basis. The Leopard 40 ex-fleet we're listing right now has had its asking cut three times in five months. Every cut is a structural seller working against a frozen demand side.
Every boat in our inventory is sourced from a major fleet phase-out (Moorings, Sunsail, Dream Yacht). We've reviewed the logbook, confirmed engine hours, and pre-negotiated the acquisition contract with the BVI source broker subject to your inspection.
Two paths: fly to the boat for an in-person sea trial with our BVI surveyor (recommended for 6-figure purchases), or schedule a live video walkthrough — our surveyor walks the hull on a 90-minute call, full engine compartment, every cabin, sail unfurl. Survey report belongs to you either way.
Inspection clean? You sign at our listed delivered price — duty paid, USCG documented, delivered to your home marina. No closing-day add-ons, no broker fees layered on at signing. The number on the boat page is the wire amount.
Deposit (typically 10% of delivered price) wires to a third-party maritime escrow. We never own a boat we haven't pre-sold — your deposit is what authorizes us to execute the BVI acquisition. Funds release on each milestone: acquisition, duty paid, delivery captain departure, US arrival.
Five services kick off in parallel: BVI acquisition close, 20% US import duty payment, customs broker engagement, ocean delivery captain dispatch, USCG documentation filing. Weekly written update with photos and ETA. Total timeline from deposit to handover: 10-14 weeks.
Final wire on arrival. USCG documentation packet and state registration delivered with the hull. Walkthrough at your slip with the delivery captain. You get our cell number — keep it.
The friction is the moat. Every one of these costs friction, time, or institutional relationships that most US buyers don't have. Five line items, one wire, one timeline.
In-person sea trial at the BVI hull with our surveyor, OR a scheduled live video walkthrough. Compression checks, engine hour verification, hull/rig inspection. Independent survey report belongs to you.
Maritime attorney drafts the bill of sale. Title transfer, lien release, and BVI Customs export paperwork. Acquisition contract pre-negotiated with the source broker subject to your inspection.
US Customs & Border Protection entry filing. 20% import duty paid on transaction value (acquisition price). Customs broker fees, harbor maintenance fee, and CBP-7501 entry summary all handled.
USCG-licensed delivery captain with crew of 2-3. Insurance binder in place for transit. Typical passage BVI → Florida: 7-10 days direct, or staged via Bahamas if weather windows tighten.
USCG vessel documentation packet filed. State registration where applicable (FL, NC, SC). Final delivery to your home marina. Walkthrough at your slip. You sign one document at handover and you're done.
You can do this yourself. People do, every year. Here's the real cost stack for a DIY import on the same Leopard 40 we list at $475K delivered — and where the friction shows up that the spreadsheet doesn't capture.
Plus: 100-200 hours of your time across 4-6 months. Vendor stack built from scratch. Concentrated transaction risk — one missed step costs $5-30K.
Versus DIY mid-range: $62-78K more. That's the price of certainty, vendor stack, risk transfer, and your weekends back. Roughly $400-500/hour for the time you don't spend.
A motivated DIY buyer with the right relationships can land this same boat for ~$400K and keep the $60-75K we'd otherwise capture. Most buyers don't have those relationships, can't take 4-6 months of weekends, and don't want concentration risk on a single offshore transaction. That's the customer who pays our spread — gladly — because it converts a 6-month project with double-digit failure modes into a wire transfer and a date.
Trade Wind & Co. operates as a catamaran import service, not a speculative brokerage. We don't sit on hulls hoping for the right buyer. Every boat in our listing has a pre-negotiated acquisition contract with the source broker, subject to your inspection. Your wire to a third-party maritime escrow (Yachtworld Escrow) is what authorizes the BVI close — funds disburse milestone-by-milestone to the BVI seller, CBP, delivery captain, and customs broker as each leg clears. Trade Wind never holds your principal. No inventory risk on our side, no float risk on yours.
Yes. Our delivered price is what wires to escrow over the life of the transaction. No buyer-side broker fees added at closing, no surprise customs adjustments. The line items on the boat detail page are the math.
The survey report is yours. If material defects show up — engine compression, rigging integrity, structural — you walk and your deposit refunds in full. Trade Wind & Co. doesn't acquire a boat you've passed on; the deposit only releases to BVI acquisition after you sign off post-inspection.
We don't originate loans, but we work routinely with Sterling Associates Yacht Finance, Trident Funding, and Essex Credit for marine mortgages. Most buyers have a pre-approval in 5-7 business days. We provide the survey report and acquisition contract directly to your lender.
Two of the three depressors don't depend on tariffs. The fleet phase-out cycle is structural — Moorings will keep buying 100+ new boats a year regardless of import duty. Dockage pressure on unsold inventory is structural. Only the buyer-pool freeze is tariff-dependent. If duties normalize, our margin compresses but our service stack (acquisition, customs, delivery, registration) stays the same value-add.
Yes — that's exactly what the inspection step is for. We schedule the survey before deposit, then deposit only after you sign off on the report. The order is: browse → inspect → sign → deposit → execute → deliver.
You can. Many DIY importers do — and most of them quit halfway. The friction is real: relationships with BVI brokers, a vetted surveyor in Road Town, a customs broker familiar with CBP-7501 for vessels, a USCG-licensed delivery captain with Caribbean experience and current TWIC. Building that stack takes 12-18 months. We've already built it.