Sailboats

Bluewater monohulls, cruising catamarans and racing dinghies:

most of what changes hands falls into one of those three. The older monohulls are heavy cruisers from the seventies and eighties, Tayanas, Cape Dorys and Morgan Out Islands among them, built to cross oceans slowly and carry a lot. Newer boats from Beneteau or Jeanneau are lighter, quicker and roomier below. Catamarans from Lagoon, Leopard or Fountaine Pajot give a flat deck, cabins in both hulls and almost no heel, which is why the charter fleets working the islands run so many of them. At the small end, the Optimist carries children through their first regattas and the ILCA, still called the Laser by most sailors, is the single-hander they move on to. Dinghies travel on boat trailers; anyone who would rather not deal with sails at all will be happier in power boats.

Guna Yala’s reefs, the Canal and the right hull:

the islands of Guna Yala are coral, with anchorages tucked behind shallow reefs, and that is where a catamaran’s shallow draft and level ride pay off. A monohull points higher, moves more gently in a seaway and costs less per foot, but its keel shuts it out of some of those anchorages. Before anything else, check which ocean the boat is in. Moving a sailboat between the Caribbean and the Pacific means taking it through the Canal locks, a project of its own that takes planning, time and money. A boat lying in Bocas suits someone planning to cruise the Caribbean coast; for weekends around Las Perlas, look on the Pacific side.

A forty-year-old cruiser against a twenty-year-old catamaran:

the two ends of the cruising market sit a long way apart. A bluewater monohull of 36 to 41 feet built in the late seventies or the eighties is asked at roughly $25,000 to $60,000, while a cruising catamaran of about forty feet with twenty-odd years behind it starts around $175,000. Catamarans hold their value because charter operators and liveaboards keep wanting them. The old monohulls are cheap partly because they are old, and partly because the owner has often flown home and is paying for a berth or a yard every month the boat sits.

Standing rigging, chainplates and a boat left closed up:

the mast is held up by wire that gives no warning before it lets go, so ask the year the standing rigging was replaced and look at every swaged fitting for hairline cracks or rust weeping from the joint. Stains below the deck fittings point to leaking chainplates, and on older teak-decked boats from Taiwan the same leaks rot the core under the planking. Unroll the sails and hold them to the light: tropical sun eats stitching long before the cloth goes. Hurricanes rarely reach Panama but thunderstorms do, so ask outright whether the mast has ever been struck. A catamaran that has worked the Guna Yala charter trade has done more hours with guests aboard than its age suggests, so ask how many seasons it chartered and look hard at the engines, the galley and the heads. A boat shut up for months grows mould and seizes its seacocks, so work each one. For anything bigger than a dinghy, have it hauled out and pay a marine surveyor before any money moves.

Listing a sailboat lying in Bocas, Portobelo or on the Pacific side:

start with builder, model, year, length and draft, then where she lies and whether she is afloat or on the hard. Give the age of each sail and of the rigging, the engine hours, and the cruising gear that adds value, such as solar, a watermaker or an autopilot. Photograph the bilge, the engine and the sails hoisted, not just the view from the cockpit, and have the papers ready. For a dinghy, the sail number, the hull and the foils are what a racing family will judge it on. Someone who travels out to Bocas or Portobelo will want to see the sails go up and the engine start cold, usually with a surveyor alongside.