Passport Yachts for Sale

Wendell Renken founded Passport Yachts in 1979, commissioned Robert Perry to draw a 40 footer and delivered the first boat in 1980. Thom Wagner joined in 1981 and has run the company as president since 1989 from Annapolis, Maryland. The office is American; the boats are not. Passport used several yards in Taiwan into the 1990s and moved production to Xiamen Island in China in 2000, and the company's own About page still does not say where the yachts are built, which surprises people. The line has run from 37 to 61 feet: the Perry designs of the early years, then the Vista series with Bill Dixon on the 585 and 615, Perry on the 515 and the in house team on the 545, plus the Classic 456 and 470 and the Voyager 480.

The two eras are very different boats. The Perry era Taiwan hulls, the 40 above all with 148 built between 1980 and 1991, are heavy displacement offshore cruisers: solid glass hull, iron ballast encapsulated in the keel, plywood cored decks on the early ones and Airex later, teak side decks about five eighths of an inch thick and a through bolted hull to deck joint with a raised bulwark. Survey the decks and the deck hardware bedding first, and ask about the ballast cavity. The Chinese built Vista boats are newer, better finished, considerably more expensive and were built in very small numbers, thirteen 515s for instance, so condition and specification decide the price rather than any model average. The American angle is easier here than with most foreign built yachts: Passport has sold and supported in the United States from Annapolis throughout, so boats delivered new here came in through the builder and were specified for American owners and American shore power. On a boat that has cruised the Mediterranean or come back from the Pacific, check the frequency and voltage on the shore inlet and the genset, and get the customs entry paperwork proving duty was paid.