What is the average age to retire from yachting?

Correction about the older Hatteras bilge setup... the 53 and all of these MY have four sealed bilges. Forward (genny room), both ERs and aft. Oil from the engine ERs cannot migrate elsewhere

Problem is that many of these older boats haven’t been maintained the way they should be but once refitted and re powered they are excellent values at a fraction of the cost

As to driving to California in a 60s Vette... I did Miami Seattle door to door in 45 hours. And came back 6 days later in 46... in my 1972 E-type. Loved it!

CANNONBALL RUN!

You keep referring to me. I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about the market and why it is such. Why there are a bunch of old Hatteras' for sale and their values have diminished. The buyers have spoken and that is what they want and why the market is such and the old boats languish on the market. People generally want to buy a yacht to relax and enjoy themselves, not to buy themselves a full time job in their time off from their real job.

You mention a Trumphy, yes they are a beautiful yacht at the marina. But they are an absolute horrible sea boat. Have you been to sea on one in the ocean? Have you been in a decent beam sea in a 53' Hatteras MY?

I do 2500-3000 NM's a lot of times in a month. I want something that is comfortable at sea and rides good and modern technology beneath my feet. I recently took a 1984 trawler to NY with 6v53's. We broke the alternator bracket on the Northern lights generator. NL didn't have a single $8.91 alternator bracket in the United States to fix it and it would've been 3 weeks out. I spent half a day in Charleston ubering around to find a welding shop that could put the pieces back together, and $200 later and $300 in crew labor, so we could leave the dock and continue on with the delivery.

The bilges are not sealed on a 53' MY, that I am sure of. Only the between the center stringers is sealed with fuel tanks from stringer to stringer in the center portion (1/3) of the boat. Outside of the center stringers, and directly under the front of the engines are a bilge pump on each side of the boat, that is where most of the water collects that gets into the bilge. Those stringers run the length of the boat and are not sealed at the bulkheads and depending on where you have weight, they have weep holes that dump into either the aft bilge section where the pump is center and directly under the owners mattress (usually when running this is where the water goes), or if the boat is very bow down they have weep holes that allow it into the center bilge forward where there is a pump in the center generator room floor. In the result of a bilge pump going bad under each engine, the water will drain to the master stateroom pump generally and also depending on fuel load or if you're running. I am 100% sure of this as I know these boats extensively inside and out and had bilge pumps go bad and know where the water travels to on them.

The water would have to be extremely high to make it aft even bow high while running. As in over the stringers to make it into the center section where the fuel tanks are. If it s over the stringers you have other things to worry about than smell in the master

I m not in denial... there is no doubt that hull design have progressed in the last 50 years along with materials. That said it s not always for the best. Bows have become bloated to get more room in the forward staterooms... deck space and interior volume have been sacrificed to make way for euro styling...

Sure these old boats roll with a beam sea but that s pretty much true of any unstabilized flush deck because of the higher center of gravity.

No, there are weep holes in the stringers further aft, near the owners mattress in the stern where the water runs the entire length of the stringer and then drains into the stern bilge via the weep holes in that stringer. These same weep holes drain any water coming in from the rudder posts (which are between the center and outbound stringers in the stern) into the aft bilge. The engine room water does it when running and also if the bilge water in the engine room bilge gets about 6" higher than normal at rest. Needless to say, the oily messy bilge water runs up and down between those two stringers (center and outbound) and under the aft guest stateroom (port side) and head starboard side, and generator room/galley/dinette forward and carries the smells with it throughout the boat. Between the center stringers is completely sealed as it is 100% comprised of the aft and forward fuel tanks, the fuel tanks are which is aft of the generator room/galley, and forward of the master stateroom.

I am not a statistician, but IF you really wanted to get some sense of an answer to your question I would start with yacht clubs. Unlike marinas I would bet that most require a birthdate for the member. Now you have the age and that data would also include if they own a yacht and its length. Now I would pick FL and up to Maine and how many of those club's data you need? I don't, 100 spread out? Then get a 10 years history and see when the members stopped owning their yacht and/or died? BUT clubs aren't going to give you that data.

Like Oldboater said, all kinds of reasons people get out of boating. My Dad is 71 and boated his whole life. Had a boat up north and one in Naples, so he always had a hull in the water. Now retired (mostly) he sold the boat up north and will by far get the most days on the water this year. No plans to ever get out of boating...unless he was confined to a bed and even then I couldn't see him selling the boat. I know life long boaters who sold when they retired because they wanted to travel the world. Thinking of all the boaters I know: death probably leads the list of times the boat gets sold and that has happened at different ages, next would be illness (and both of those are things the people don't have control over), after those the is all over the place. Wanting to travel the world, deiced to get a smaller boat, wanted to move to spend more time where the grandkids live, etc, etc, etc

I don't see an easy way to get good reliable data you need to start to answer this and then project it out to when yacht sale prices will come down related to it. But good luck!

Holy cow ,Joe Deepwater ! There is a lot of good advise here. Here is mine. You only live once . And if you want a boat and can afford it along with the upkeep, go get it ! You have to honestly choose whether you can currently get around on it to maintain or run the boat, if that's what you like to do. Or hire a person like Capt. J , to upkeep and run the boat for you. Your original post is kind of cryptic, not sure if you are telling us the real story. Your body will tell you when it's time to '' retire'' from yachting/boating/sailing, not somebody's statistic. Or some else's situation.

F

Funny you should mention that. My father and brother are members of a prominent yacht club in CT, the former on the membership committee. "We are an aging, greying and shrinking club". Even the most prestigious clubs on the Chesapeake, which have the "You must know two people for introduction" rule, now have "mixers" where you can show up and at the end of the evening you know two people.....

All I can tell you is that my aft bilge, under the master never had any oily water in it and has no oil residue. And that was after 47 years of leaky DDs. It took a week to clean the ER bilges during the repower, yet not a drop of oil under the master.

I think this is more of the fact that yacht clubs, no longer appeal to most newer yachters. They haven't really updated and been a part of the times for the most part. Nobody wants to get off of their yacht and wear a sports jacket to dinner (for example). They want to go to a marina that's fun and upbeat and has cool people. Things to do for the younger crowd. A fun, happening restaurant. It seems most yacht clubs are stodgy and fail to appeal to younger or newer yachters because the older members will not allow it. Some have taken great steps to appeal to younger members......places like Ocean Reef, Fort Lauderdale and Coral Ridge yacht clubs......

Did your rudder posts ever leak, etc? when water got back there if ever, where did it go? It must have flowed forward to your number 1 bilge pump . Same with water flowing aft when running? Like J said. It's hard to keep all the obscure lumber holes clean and open as you know. Maybe some hidden ones were blocked up? And I sure not every Hatteras is created equal , with regards to placement of lumber holes. Or just blocking them up during the build...

Clubs of any type are no longer ''in'' with the newer generation it seams, that goes with the Ski clubs I belong to, we have the same problem.. Yes , Capt J you hit the nail on the head. Most things/clubs/organization are done on the internet through ''Meetup'' or such. Where people of liked interests get together.

Yes Rudder posts had been leaking for a while and water would flow in the center bilge under the master where the aft bilge pump is. It never flowed forward. Again this may have changed later on ot on other variants but on my early 53 ER and Aft bilges are not connected.

We belong to a yacht club. The reason is so we can use their tennis courts.

I was really just offering up the 'yacht clubs' as a resource for the data in question. Clubs in general are not that healthy. We have belonged to several across the country from skiing, golf (don't even golf) and yacht, they are all pushing for new members. But those struggles are a different topic. In Naples it is the newer of the yacht clubs, so they stuffiness is probably not the same. No tennis courts or even a pool, just restaurant, marina, dry stack. Very welcoming to us and our kids (grandkids). But I take all the points mentioned above.

Back to the OP question. The next place I would look to source the data you are looking for would be insurers. Maybe an insurance broker could give you some blind data for yachts they cover in that range, age of owner, how long they have had the coverage, etc. Again I don't see anyone handing out the information and it would best be done by a boating industry trade request to compile the information. Next would be the banks as they would be the financiers. But I would suspect that data is a little "lumpy" in the size range you are talking about, not as much financing...or maybe there is more. ‍♂️ Still I don't see anyway of accessing that.

One final thought on the question is I don't see owners of 50'-80' yachts are being "on a fixed income" in general. At least not like owners of 30'-50' boats. That is more the tipping point of someone who retires and is chipping away at their nest egg and hoping they don't outlive it. Where 50-80 is more likely someone who owns part of the business or commercial real estate, etc that is continuing to provide ongoing income. The point is their pressure or need to sell at a reduced price is lower.

IF I was just guessing off the top of my head, I would again say 65-75 and that is more a result of death. But that is a WAG on my part.

I've known plenty of people to get out of boating at 25-30, when they had their first child. What does that do to the averages?

Florida Yacht Club, just south of Ortega (in Jax) is very popular with young and old.
Josie's company services many boats there and I get to visit from time to time.
I am proud to say, a very active club for all ages.

You'd be surprised. Right now I have 2 different yacht owners that I work for that are both getting divorced after 34 and 37 years of marriage.