The anatomy of a quiet sale

The phrase off-market has been marketed to death, so let us be precise about what it means here: a yacht that is genuinely for sale, at a genuine price, whose owner has decided the market does not need to know.

Discretion costs reach. That is the honest trade. A public listing works the whole market; a quiet sale works our book. It succeeds only when the broker actually knows who is ready to buy at this size and this price, this season.

The mechanics are simple and old-fashioned: a call, a viewing arranged as a harbour walk, particulars that change hands after an NDA rather than before. The price discussion happens between two principals who were both serious before they met.

It is not the right route for every yacht. But when the fit is right, a quiet sale closes faster, at a firmer price, than the listing that spends a year on the portals teaching the market to wait.