Broward Yachts for Sale

Frank Denison was a Michigan boatbuilder on honeymoon in Fort Lauderdale in 1948 when he bought Dooley's Basin & Dry Dock, a wartime defense yard that had closed. He and Gertrude renamed it Broward Marine and started out repairing boats. What it became was the American builder of large motor yachts, with minesweepers for the Navy along the way and then a long run of aluminum raised-pilothouse, cockpit and tri-deck yachts that defined what a Florida owner expected.

The early boats were wood; aluminum became the signature by the mid-1970s. The layouts were drawn around professional crew and shallow Florida draft, and the interiors were large, quiet and built to last. The company changed hands around 2000 and new yachts are no longer built. A well-kept Broward is an enormous amount of boat for the money: the hulls are close to indestructible, the systems are what age, and the survey should spend its time in the engine room rather than on the hull.