What’s the Brokerage Market for the Viking 61 Convertible?

There are some key factors to consider if you’re looking at a used Viking sportfisherman. Have a look at what a broker has to say about this proven model.

By PMY Broker Insight

July 19, 2016

There are some key factors to consider if you’re looking at a used Viking sportfisherman. Have a look at what a broker has to say about this proven model.

Roger Barnhart, Galati Yachts, www.galatiyachts.com
It really depends on how it’s been used its whole life. Some of them are super clean and have been maintained with an open checkbook and some of them of been rode real hard and put away wet. It just depends on how the boat is maintained throughout its life when you’re looking at a little bit older boat like that—small things like stress cracks on the stringers and on the hardtop. I was on one boat just the other day and there were stress cracks on all the welds on the aluminum tubes on the hardtop and around the stringers under the engines. Other than that, if you didn’t see them, the boat looks real good—it was a painted boat with electronics and a new mezzanine. It had all the right stuff, but it had been beat up. You could go in and glass up where the stress cracks are and put a new hardtop on the boat, but you can buy a better boat for not much different money so we moved on. You can always redo fiberglass, but you’ve got to draw a line between what’s worth doing and what’s not. All of my customers always want a mezzanine on a big Viking like that, and on an older Viking like that you’re generally going to want a painted boat. Electronics help but electronics are easy. The gelcoat on those older Vikings had some issues back then they got some cracks in the gelcoat. It’s easier to maintain a painted finish than it is to work with that old gelcoat. Everybody wants to go fast these days. Some of the 61s had the CATs, and some had MTUs, but I’m a fan of Caterpillars. Things have been going well. There’s not as much good inventory as there has been in the past so it’s kind of tightening up a little bit. I feel like maybe in the fall some more stuff will come around. Being summertime everybody’s using their boats. If you want to spend $4 million there’s plenty of stuff, but if you’re trying to spend between $1 and $2 million there’s not a whole lot.