About Broward

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.

What we know about Broward

Broward were founded at Fort Lauderdale in 1948 by Frank Denison and were a genuine pioneer of American shipbuilding, bringing the semi custom series build to boats over a hundred feet. The original yard has stopped, so what is on the market now is a classic, and for a lot of buyers the most affordable way into a superyacht.

They are known for volume. Broward pioneered the wide body, and the salons and staterooms are enormous for the money, which is why designers and brokers call them floating condominiums and why people who buy one rarely regret the space.

The hulls are sea kindly and sturdy, and the draft is shallow, which makes them unusually well suited to Florida and the Bahamas. That is not a small thing here: it decides which anchorages and which cuts are open to you.

The one thing to be clear eyed about is the aluminium. These boats demand strict, continuous maintenance, and on a hull of this age the maintenance history is the purchase. A well kept Broward is a great deal of boat for the money. A neglected one is a project with a superyacht's running costs, and the survey is where that gets decided.

John Booysen, Aspire Yacht Sales.