Venture Yachts for Sale

Venture is a small Florida center console builder, founded in West Palm Beach in 1994 around a single deep vee hull and best known for two boats: the 34, which arrived in 1995, and the 39, which arrived in 2004. A dealer network followed in 1998 and the line later added a 23 bay boat and a 27 open. The company went quiet and was relaunched in 2012 by new owner Lee Heaton, who moved production into the American Custom Yachts plant at Stuart, where the sportfish builders next door supply the paint shop, the tower fabrication, the canvas and the electronics.

On the brokerage market Venture is a fisherman's boat, not a fashion boat, and it trades that way. The hull is the reason people buy them: a heavy, narrow entry deep vee that keeps running when the sea gets up, which is why you see so many of them in Jupiter, Stuart and Palm Beach with towers and a big fuel load. Buying one, work out which era you are looking at. Pre 2012 boats came out of the original West Palm Beach shop and vary in layout, tankage and hardware from boat to boat, so treat each one as an individual and get the stringers, transom and fuel tank looked at properly. Later boats built at American Custom Yachts use Kevlar and Divinycell foam coring with vinylester resin and are generally better documented. On every one of them the outboards are half the decision: a 39 carrying triples is a large engine bill waiting to happen, so hours, service records and the rigging behind the transom matter more than the upholstery. Because the company is small and its production history is broken, do not count on factory parts or a factory warranty. Budget for a good local yard instead.