Atlantic Harbor Marine Group

A boat is easy to buy and expensive to own badly. This is the part where somebody who has already made the mistakes keeps you from making them.

Cameron Reed has worked around Florida boats for twenty-one years, on the water and in the yard. He helps people buy, sell, keep and look after a boat in a state where the salt, the sun and the storms are harder on a hull than anywhere most newcomers have owned one before. He will tell you when a boat is wrong for what you actually plan to do with it, which is the most useful thing anybody says to a first-time buyer.

Who runs it

He looks at the boat himself. The man who tells you what he thinks of it is the man who climbed into the engine bay, and he says what he saw rather than what would close the sale.

He will talk you out of a boat. A hull that needs more than the buyer is ready for becomes somebody's regret and somebody's loss, and he would rather lose the sale than arrange that.

What they do

• 01
  Buying a boat

  Working out what the boat is actually for before looking at any, then finding one that fits it rather than one that looks good at the dock.

• 02
  Selling a boat

  Listed, shown and handled, with the paperwork and the title work done properly so the sale does not come back on you.

• 03
  Service and repair

  Engines, systems, steering and electrics, done by people he has used for years rather than whoever answers first.

• 04
  Storage and dockage

  Finding a slip, a lift or a yard that suits the boat and the way you actually use it, including through hurricane season.

• 05
  Before you buy

  A survey and a sea trial arranged and attended, so somebody who knows what to listen for is standing there when the engine runs.

• 06
  New to Florida boating

  Registration, where you can and cannot go, what the water does to a boat here, and what the first year actually costs you in time.

Who it does not suit