How Knotworth works: the real cost of a used sailboat, before you visit

The asking price of a used sailboat is rarely the real price. In our cost model's typical ranges, a 20-year-old cruiser listed at €58,000 can need another €15,000 to €30,000 of rigging, sails and deferred maintenance before she is ready to sail far; the sample report walks through exactly such a case.

Sellers are not required to volunteer that, and listings are written to sell. Knotworth exists to put the buyer's numbers on the table before you spend a weekend and a ferry ticket visiting the wrong boat. You can see exactly what you get in our sample report for a 2004 Bavaria 38.

What does Knotworth actually do?

You paste a listing URL. Knotworth fetches that one listing, extracts the specs and every condition claim, compares the boat against your budget and sailing plans, and prices the work it likely needs. It then generates the questions to ask the seller and keeps recomputing as answers arrive.

The key distinction: Knotworth separates what the listing says from what it stays silent about. A listing that never mentions the standing rigging is not a listing about a boat with new rigging. That difference drives the whole report.

Step 1: Paste a listing URL and read the free pre-check

The pre-check is free for every boat, every time. Within about a minute you get the boat's specs and design ratios, a mission-fit read against your buyer profile, and any knock-out: a boat that cannot fit your hard budget ceiling, your draft limits or your sailing plans is flagged before you pay anything.

• Specs and design ratios: displacement, sail area to displacement, comfort ratio, capsize screening and hull speed, matched against the design database.
• Mission fit: how this hull reads for your plans, whether that is weekending, coastal cruising, living aboard or bluewater.
• Knock-outs with an override: if we would pass, we say so and show why. You can always proceed anyway; it is advice, not a wall.

A no-go at this stage costs you nothing. We never charge to tell you a boat is an easy rejection; how that principle shapes the price is on the pricing page.

Step 2: Unlock the full report for that boat

If the pre-check looks worth pursuing, one payment unlocks everything for this boat. The full report has three parts, and every part updates as new information arrives.

• Per-system condition read. Around 30 systems, each with a status: done, original, needs work, not aboard, or not mentioned, with the exact listing quote behind every claim.
• True-cost table. Purchase price, cost-to-sail work lines, transaction costs and a contingency, each as a low-high range with its assumption stated. Any line can be replaced with your own real quote.
• Total investment meter. The all-in range drawn against your hard ceiling, so the go/no-go question becomes visual: does the worst case still fit?

Step 3: Ask the seller the right questions

Every system the listing is silent about becomes a seller question. Knotworth generates the outreach for you: an email, a message or a call script, phrased so a seller can answer it in five minutes.

When the reply comes, paste it in. The condition read, the cost ranges and the verdict recompute automatically, and the ranges tighten with each round. There is no limit on rounds; the whole loop is covered by the one payment.

Step 4: Your final go/no-go and your first offer

When the evidence is in, Knotworth states its view plainly: pursue, or pass, and why. The decision stays yours; the report includes an explicit proceed-anyway path because it is your dream boat and your money.

If you go, the negotiation evidence turns confirmed defects and unanswered questions into a priced, written case for your first offer: each problem, its cost range, and the remedy you are asking for. The whole report exports to PDF.

What can Knotworth see that I can't?

Nothing magical: the same listing, read without wishful thinking. The advantage is systematic coverage of roughly 30 systems, honest handling of silence, age-based replacement math, and region-aware tax and transaction costs. Buyers in love with a boat skip those steps; a checklist run by software does not.

Experienced buyers do much of this by hand today with survey checklists and forum research. Knotworth compresses that into minutes, per specific boat, and keeps the arithmetic honest when new answers arrive.

Is Knotworth a marine survey?

No. Knotworth is a research aid that works from the listing and the seller's own answers; it never sees the physical boat. A professional survey and sea trial remain essential before purchase. Knotworth is the step before: it decides whether the boat deserves a survey, and what the surveyor should look hardest at.

A pre-purchase survey with haul-out is a real cost on top of travel. Spending it on a boat whose rigging bill was knowable from her age is the mistake we exist to prevent.

Which listing sites does it work with?

Any public listing URL: YachtWorld, boat24, Apollo Duck, Boats.com, Boat Trader, brokerage sites and most national marketplaces. Knotworth fetches the specific listing you paste, on demand, for you; it does not scrape sites or keep a catalog of other people's boats.

If a listing is thin, the gaps simply become seller questions. Currency is handled too: prices convert at current reference rates, and EU VAT status is tracked as its own question when the listing does not state it.