Jim Smith Yachts for Sale

James Claude Smith was born in Georgia in 1906 and spent twenty years building and racing biplanes, hydroplanes, motorcycles and outboards, then turned that into the largest Johnson Outboard and Chris-Craft dealership in the South. He retired to Florida in 1949 and in 1959 built Boca Jima at Stuart, a 35 footer put together the way an airplane is put together: double diagonal cedar planking in epoxy, light and stiff, and very fast for the day. John Vance took the company over in 1989 and has run it ever since. The yard is still at Stuart and still builds custom, now from roughly 48 to 105 feet, sportfishermen and walkarounds with the long low look and the house set well aft that makes them recognizable from a distance.

Every Jim Smith is a one off and every hull is built in the Stuart shop, in wood. That is the whole question on a used one. Cold molded cedar and epoxy is a superb way to build a fast boat and it stays superb for as long as the epoxy envelope stays intact, so the survey is about water: moisture readings through the laminate, and then every place the envelope is pierced, which means shaft logs, rudder ports, exhaust, through hulls, fasteners, covering boards, the cockpit sole and any previous repair. A dry cold molded hull is effectively permanent. A wet one is a large project, and the difference between the two is not always visible. Hire a surveyor who has done cold molded sportfishermen specifically, not a generalist. Two things work in a buyer's favor here: the yard is still open under the same ownership since 1989, so the build detail on a given hull can usually be had, and boats in the tournament world tend to be maintained to a standard that shows up in the survey. Remember that engines, tower and tackle are a large share of the asking price on any of them.