Bruce Roberts Yachts for Sale

Bruce Roberts is a design office, not a builder, and that is the first thing to know about a listing carrying the name. Robert Bruce Goodson, who worked as Bruce Roberts, started the practice at Brisbane in 1966 with Andrew Slorach and opened a United States office in 1972. He sold study plans, full plans, cutting files, frame patterns and pre cut metal kits, around 400 designs from 19 to 85 feet in steel, aluminum, fiberglass and wood epoxy, and amateurs and small yards worldwide turned them into boats. He has since died, and Hal Whitacre, who has represented the designs in North America since 2004, now handles the plans.

So no two Bruce Roberts boats are the same boat. Two hulls to one drawing, finished in different sheds on different continents, can be a world apart in workmanship, and you are buying the builder, not the design. Get a surveyor who specializes in the material, and on a steel hull insist on ultrasonic readings throughout rather than spot checks. Many were finished abroad, so duty may never have been paid and the wiring may be 230 volt 50 hertz, and documenting an amateur built hull is fussier than a factory boat. Lenders and insurers are cautious about them, so arrange both before you commit.