Here is your chance to pick up a top-of-the-line luxury offshore boat at a bargain basement price. This gorgeous and virtually brand new, fully-optioned Oceania is for sale at a massive 33% off the retail price.
What's the catch?
There's no catch - two years ago we began a search for a more affordable high quality offshore boat. We'd decided that boats had just become too expensive and there had to be better options out there.
It didn't turn out to be as easy as we had thought. The weakening Aussie dollar didn't help at all and neither did the rigorous import regulations that seemed to thwart our every move. Occasionally we'd find something we liked but either the manufacturer couldn't sell direct to us because of their obligations to their dealer network, or they wanted us to buy in large quantities.
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On other occasions we found what we liked at the right price but the quality control was unreliable, so we couldn't be sure we would get what we had ordered.
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Eventually we discovered Oceania boats. A long-established European boat designer and manufacturer who had taken their production to China 13 years ago and have mastered the art of maintaining high quality standards in a country where the labour costs are low and due to large volumes the highest quality materials are not expensive.
At last we'd found a supplier and after a lot of gentle persuasion they agreed to sell us a single boat for evaluation and to use as a demonstrator.
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I know that a lot of people are skeptical about products from China but it's worth keeping in mind that China has developed its questionable quality reputation mainly due to the buying habits of many of us, who frequently look for the cheapest option.
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Certainly China does produce some very poor quality items which often have to be fixed before they can be used but China also makes some of the highest quality products on the planet. Many of the global big producers in aerospace, aviation, auto and machinery have been manufacturing their often critical hardware in carefully controlled factories across China, so the highest quality products are available from there too, you just have to know where to look.
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Anyway - we received this boat in Australia four months ago in November 2019, fitted the amazingly fuel efficient direct injection Evinrude Etec 150hp (they have more 'grunt' and use less fuel than just about anything else on the market, and servicing them is inexpensive), added a Lowrance HDS-Live Chartplotter/Fishfinder (with 3D capability), an autopilot, fridge and we were ready to put it through its paces in some serious trials.
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See the PERFORMANCE page for a full run-down of our findings but in short we were quite astounded at how well this boat performs and what a good all-round pocket offshore boat she is.
Having said that - we had a particular purpose in mind for this boat and it turns out that we actually need a slightly larger boat to carry more provisions and equipment for the excursions we plan to make. We currently have the factory developing a boat especially for our needs so this one, with very few hours on it and in 'as new' condition is now available for purchase at a very discounted price and no GST!
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