Private Market Access
Where draft matters more than length.
The Bahamas is the natural extension of the South Florida market and, for many American owners, the actual reason they bought the boat. Bimini is a couple of hours from Miami, and the Exumas open up an entire cruising ground that most of the Caribbean cannot match for protected anchorages.
It is also a cruising ground with a hard technical constraint. Large parts of the Bahamian banks are genuinely shallow, and a yacht drawing much over seven feet spends its life planning around tides. Draft is frequently the single most important specification a Bahamas-focused buyer should check.
Yachts based here tend to be specified accordingly — shallower draft, better tender provision, and systems capable of running for extended periods without shore support.
Sample dataPlatform demonstration. The opportunities shown are sample records used to illustrate how the private market is presented — they are not offers, and no vessel shown is represented as available.
4 opportunities published
Confidential · Masked until qualification
PRIVATE LISTING· Seller position confirmed
North American Build · 2024
Florida / Bahamas
$2.1M–$2.5M
Estimated asking range
PRIVATE LISTING· Seller position confirmed
Italian Build · 2023
Florida / Bahamas
$3.6M–$4.1M
Estimated asking range
VERIFIED OFF-MARKET· Seller position confirmed
Northern European Build · 2018 · Refit 2024
Florida / Bahamas
$28M–$34M
Estimated asking range
PRIVATE LISTING· Seller position confirmed
Italian Build · 2015 · Refit 2023
Bahamas
$7.2M–$8.4M
Estimated asking range
Under about six feet gives you effectively unrestricted access to the Exumas and the shallow banks. Between six and eight feet is workable with tide planning. Above roughly eight feet, significant areas become impractical and routing has to be planned around deep-water channels.
Bimini is roughly fifty nautical miles from Miami and around eighty from Fort Lauderdale. Nassau is approximately one hundred and eighty nautical miles from Fort Lauderdale. All are comfortable single-day passages for a cruising yacht in reasonable conditions.
Yes. Visiting vessels clear in at a designated port of entry and obtain a cruising permit, which is straightforward and typically handled by the captain or a local agent. Permits are per visit rather than attached permanently to the vessel.
Most owners base in Florida and cruise the Bahamas. Florida gives you yard capacity, crew availability and parts; the Bahamas gives you the cruising. Basing permanently in the Bahamas means accepting longer lead times on any technical work.
December through May is the settled season. Summer brings both heat and hurricane risk, and most insurance policies restrict Bahamian cruising during the named windstorm period.
It depends on the vessel's flag, ownership and where it will be used after purchase. A yacht returning to US waters under US ownership has a different position from one remaining foreign-flagged. Take advice before closing.
Where a published opportunity has a shallow-draft configuration, we note it in the public description. It is one of the attributes worth asking about specifically when you enquire.
Tell us what you are looking for. We will search the private market and come back to you with what is genuinely there.