Log X - Artemis 1 (Choosing - Part 2)

A full cabin cruiser usually has a sleeping capacity of 3 or 4 people and preferrably air-conditioned especially in tropical areas.

The kitchenette is normally equipped with a sink, an electric stove, a microwave, a fridge and a coffee-maker.

The toilet comes with shower facilities though they are not so commonly used and I will explain why in my later posts.

But what makes the Wellcraft Coastal 330 stands out is this...

There is a small cozy dining area inside the cabin. If you have not stepped into a cabin cruiser before, it is quite hard to imagine from the exterior looks that there can be so much furnishing inside. This is because part of the boat is submerged in water and you can only see the exposed top portion, you will not know how deep is the draft. *Draft of a boat is the distance between the surface of the water and the lowest point of the boat.

As for the Grady White, most of the reviews I found on the internet were excellent! From the cabin design and facilities to the shape of the hull for a more stable ride. But being a well known brand, the price tag on a Grady is generally higher than a Wellcraft. If I am going to find a Grady that can fit my budget, it will be likely a boat from the 90s.

So in the end, I chose a year 2001 Wellcraft Coastal 330 but without the flybridge as shown in the photo from my previous post.

If you do not know what a flybridge is - it is the open deck on top of the boat. When you compare the photo above with the photo from my previous post here, you will know what is the difference.

After you have decided on the the boat that you want to buy, you can contact the seller's broker to bargain on the price. Usually the listed price has at least a 10% room for discount. The bargaining process will take quite some time because the broker has to convey the messages between you and the seller, and the 13 hours difference in time zone is not helping.

Read on what do you do next after the seller agree to your offered price in the next post.

Log IX - Artemis 1 (Choosing - Part 1)

After importing a boat myself, I realised that not many people had done it before. Most of the boaters will usually get an agent to do everything for them. In case you are one of those who like to do things yourself like what I did, you might find some of the information useful in the following blog posts.

Anyway the posts will be based purely on my single boat purchasing experience, I believe that there are better ways to do certain tasks, and if there is, please drop me a message so that I will know what to do for my next purchase. I shall start from the very beginning - picking a boat.

There are 2 main countries that I looked at when I was choosing my boat - Australia and USA. Of course there are many other places you can choose to look for your dream boat, but I narrowed down to these 2 countries because of the credibility. Unless you have too much cash and want to fly there and stay for a couple of weeks to settle the transaction, most of the communication will be done through emails or phone calls. So the credibility of the local broker you are dealing with is very important.

You will not want to transfer tens of thousands overseas to a country that is known for scams do you?


Australia has the geographical advantage over USA as it is much nearer to Singapore, hence the shipping will be cheaper. The power rating is also similar at 240V. But for USA, the voltage rating is 110V.

This is a typical US 110V wall socket.

Buying a boat from Australia looks like a more logical choice. However, there are many cases of boat owners in USA unable to finance their boat loans due to the economic downturn in the past decade. And I guess this is the reason why the average selling price of boat in the US is much lower as compared to Australia.

At the end of the day if you factored in the higher shipping costs from USA and the costs of installing a transformer to step down the shore power from 240V to 110V, you might find certain bargains in Australia better than US. But without knowing much on the shipping and transformer costs at that point of time when I was choosing the boat, it seemed obvious to me then that I should go for the cheaper boats in the states.

Next is the question of what type of boat you want. I shall not list the types of boat here as you can easily google the types of boat or yacht to get your answers. For me, I know what I want because I have been thinking of buying it since 6-7 years ago and it is only now then I put my first step forward. I was looking for a cabin cruiser with a small living area and designed for fishing.

These criteria narrowed down my search by a lot. FYI, the number of resale boats in USA is more than the number of boats registered in Singapore. So narrowing down your search criteria will save you a lot time. And finally I shortlisted to just 2 models of boat - Grady White Marlin 300 and Wellcraft Coastal 330.

Grady White Marlin 300

Wellcraft Coastal 330

Grady White is well known for making quality luxury fishing boat, so basically you cannot go wrong with this brand. As for Wellcraft, frankly speaking I was not aware of this brand until I started researching on fishing boats. It was shortlisted because I was attracted by the cabin design.

What is the cabin feature that attracted me? And which model did I choose eventually? They shall be revealed in my next post.