Thousands of sailors look at the Sailing Texas Classifieds every day, thousands. To get the word out that your sailboat is for sale, Sailing Texas cannot be beat. I can offer Sailboat Ads for free, because I use the information you send me to build the Sailing Texas Photo Gallery, and because many people donate to keep Sailing Texas serving sailors.
On the Sailing Texas home page, on the right, is a running total of sailboats sold, new ads, and ads expired for the month. You can scroll down and see figures for last month, and the month before, and even past years. Why don't other sailboat classified websites show their statistics?
Quote from a Sailing Texas Classifieds user:
David,
The Catalina 30 is sold!!!! Thank you for your website; it is fantastic! I
have now both purchased a boat (small trailerable) from Pennsylvania, and
sold my large cruising sailboat to a family in Wisconsin, while living in
Ohio, all on your Sailing Texas Website!!!
Best regards,
Chet
Yes, the Sailing Texas Classifieds sells sailboats across Earth, NOT just in Texas! Your free classified ad includes editing, spelling correction, advice, and picture processing. A free webpage just for your boat is included, with video and sound if you wish! For free.
INSTRUCTIONS
First, let's get the FORBIDDEN items out of the way:
Do NOT send me a link to a webpage with your ad info on it
Do NOT send ANY attachments except jpg picture files
Do NOT send me a Word doc, eml file, or other file
Do NOT send your ad in ALL CAPS.
Do NOT send a bunch of extra pictures and expect me to pick the ones you like the best. It's your boat, you decide.
REQUIRED INFORMATION: I have learned over the years that a few items of information are essential to sell a boat.
REQUIRED ITEMS, leave one out and your ad is not posted.
Honesty
Year, make and length of boat
Location of boat, nearest town, state
Asking price (price increases are not allowed)
Your name and phone number
Other information and pictures are recommended, but not required.
To place your free sailboat ad on Sailing Texas,
Email David at davidluc@earthlink.net with all required items.
Pictures:
Limit is 5 pictures for small boats, and up to 10 for large boats.
Attach your pictures to your email in jpg format ONLY
Width at least 480 pixels, 640 or more is much preferable, so I can crop them if needed.
Things not to do with pictures
Do NOT send pictures in a slide show, via other services, webpages or in other documents! Attach picture files to email only.
Do NOT send a link to another site where pictures are.
Do NOT put the pictures in a zip file. Do not put spaces or odd characters in your file names.
Pictures are copyrighted, do NOT send pictures of some other boat or "sistership", NEVER take pictures from a website, it is illegal.
Attach your pics to email, period.
I will make your pictures fit the ad and reduce the file size so they will display fast. I may crop the picture and adjust the lighting and contrast to help you sell your boat.
Videos are easier than ever:
Send your video file with Filesend to my email address, davidluc@earthlink.net
File size limited to 120 Megabytes, but I can handle avi, mov, wmv and some other video files. I will edit and process your video for the web and put it in your ad. No charge.
Description: Include the specs for your boat if possible. Length, width, depth, weight, sail area, etc. While you know this for your boat, potential buyers often will have never seen your model. Be complete and brief.
Use plain text in the body of the email.
Do not use bullets, hyphens or *. I put bullets in where appropriate, just use single space lines and only one column.
To place your free sailboat ad on Sailing Texas,
Email David at davidluc@earthlink.net with all required items.
After I build your ad, I will send you a confirmation email with your unique ad code in the subject line. Save this email, and to make changes, just reply to that email. Simple. You deal with a human, David, not a computer.
Ads run for 90 days, but can be renewed and returned to the top of the for sale list at any time by reducing your price about 5%. Ads are NOT removed, even if your ad expires you can still use it to show your boat to prospective buyers, and you can still return it to the top of the Sailboats for Sale list by reducing the price. See Sailing Texas terms of use
Sailing Texas is number one in customer service, and my customers are both buyers and sellers, and I charge them both the same, nothing. Finding sailboats a new home is what I do for fun. I'm not a sailboat dealer, I'm not a sailboat broker. I am a sailing instructor, which is even more fun. When I turned 50 I decided to do what I loved to do the most, and teaching people how to sail came up #1, helping people sell and buy sailboats #2. This website is to promote sailing, because I love sailing and I have fun doing the website, but it's a sideline to my career of sailing instructor. If you want to sell your sailboat, I want to help you get a fair price for it. If you want to buy a sailboat, I don't want you to pay too much. The Sailing Texas Classifieds are designed to do these two things, help the seller AND the buyer.
Information on sailboats that were for sale on Sailing Texas are saved in the Sailboat Photo Gallery. Ads are dated from early 2003, so you know how long a boat has been for sale and when it's asking priced was last reduced. A wealth of information, have a look. The Photo Gallery contained over 6,000 sailboats in early 2009, that actually were for sale from 2002 to present, and they are all here for you to use in the Sailboat Photo Gallery. Buyers use it to see what people have been asking for a model, and Sellers use it help them decide what to ask for their sailboat. About 1,000 sailboats are added per year.
