Grand Banks Eastbay Yachts for Sale

Grand Banks made its name on slow wooden and then fiberglass trawlers. The Eastbay was the other direction entirely. C. Raymond Hunt Associates of New Bedford began working with the company in 1993 and the Eastbay 38 EX went on sale in 1994, pairing a Hunt and Deknatel deep V bottom with Downeast lobster boat styling, and the line grew to sixteen models: the 38, the 39 SX, the 40 and 43 flybridges, the 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 55 and 58, and today the 44 SX and the 60. Building was done first in Singapore and later at the Grand Banks yard at Pasir Gudang in Johor, Malaysia, alongside the trawlers and Palm Beach. The 49 gives a sense of the volumes: about a hundred built between 1997 and 2007, most of them the canvas HX rather than the hard enclosed SX, mostly on Caterpillar 3196 or C12 diesels.

On the used market an Eastbay is a genuinely fast Downeast boat with a reputation for a dry ride in bad water, which is why they hold their price and why Power and Motoryacht called the 49 tremendous value for a cruising owner. Specific things to look at: the holding plate refrigeration on the older boats, which is expensive to replace, the helm door mechanism, the teak, and how the tender is carried. The American story is better here than for almost any other foreign built boat in this batch. Grand Banks is Malaysian built but American headquartered: the company runs its United States base and service yard at Stuart, Florida, with its own parts counter, plus offices at Dania Beach, Newport, Rowayton, San Diego and Newport Beach, and it sells factory direct. Owners of used boats can register them with the factory. Boats delivered new to American owners came in through that channel with the duty paid and were specified for this market, with American engines your own yard already works on. The one to check is the import from elsewhere: an Eastbay that has come back from Europe or Australia may be 230V or 240V at 50Hz, and it needs a customs entry showing the duty was settled.