A 2014 Outremer 49 in La Grande-Motte, $895K — what I'd actually pay

The boat I'm watching this week is a 2014 Outremer 49 listed at €825,000 — about $895K at today's rate — sitting on the hard in La Grande-Motte. Three private owners, just under 25,000 nautical miles on her, original sails, original standing rigging.

That last sentence is the entire research note in miniature.

The 49 is the boat I keep coming back to for the family plan. The 51 that replaced it is more refined, but a clean 49 with daggerboards, a balanced rig, and the original Outremer feel is a serious offshore platform — and on the survey-and-discount side of the market, ten-year-old boats are where the math starts working. The build is right, the hull lines are right, the displacement-to-length is right. What I'm doing in my spreadsheet right now is figuring out what "right" actually costs on this specific listing.

Standing rigging at ten years is end-of-life on a boat that intends to cross oceans, especially under insurance pressure. I'd quote that at $30K conservatively, including discharge, transport, and reconnection. Original sails at 25K nautical miles are tired even if they look okay; main and jib together, replaced by a competent loft, is another $40K — closer to $48K if I want a code zero in the package, which I do. Saildrives are the unknown: if seals haven't been done, that's $4K each, and at this age you're doing both. Electronics on a 2014 boat predate modern integrated NMEA-2000 networks; budget $20K to bring chart plotter, AIS, and radar current.

Then the boring stuff. Bottom job, anchor windlass service (Lewmar V4 most likely), running rigging, watermaker membranes, life raft recert, possible headliner work in the saloon — Outremers of this era sometimes telegraph through the headliner. Call it $25K of soft costs that aren't sexy and aren't optional.

Add it up: $30K rigging plus $48K sails plus $8K saildrives plus $20K electronics plus $25K everything else equals $131K, and I haven't replaced the running rigging or touched the primary winches yet. Round to $145K because the survey will find at least one thing I didn't budget for. It always does.

So an $895K listed boat has roughly a $1.04M true cost of getting it ocean-ready under my criteria. That number matters because it's the number I need to be under, not the listing price.

Where I'd actually open: $755K, conditional on survey, with a refit allowance written into the offer documenting the $90K of work I expect to do regardless. That gets me to about $845K total commitment with realistic contingency. Walking-away point is $810K listed, because at that price the math on refit cost stops being interesting versus a 2017 or 2018 hull that needs less.

I haven't called the broker. I might not. The point of writing this down is that when the boat I do call about appears, I want to have already worked out what the answer is — instead of falling in love with whichever hull I see first and reverse-engineering the spreadsheet to justify it. I'll keep watching this one through the season; if it slips below $850K I'll book a survey. The worksheet is where I keep the comparison numbers honest.