What the tool does, why it does it that way, and where every control lives. Written for marine professionals who already hold their own subscriptions to sold-sales data.
Video tour · about 5 minutes
Watch a full valuation, start to finish
A narrated walk through the surveyor worksheet with a real example vessel: bringing in the listing and sold comparables, catching a duplicate sale, the adjustments, and the finished analysis, PDF, ledger and narrative.
Watch the tourEvery part of this guide, in the order the work happens.
Read this part once. Everything after it assumes you have.
This is a calculation aid. You supply comparable sales, guide figures, condition ratings and the adjustments you choose; it does the arithmetic consistently, shows its working, and drafts a narrative you can paste into your own document.
It does not verify your data, it does not exercise professional judgment, and its output is not an appraisal. Every figure it produces depends entirely on what you put in. The result, and anything built on it, remains your professional judgment and your responsibility.
The tool does not have a sales database and cannot fetch one. It is built for marine professionals who already hold their own subscriptions to sold-sales resources — BoatWizard / SoldBoats for achieved prices, BUC for guide values. If you do not have access to recorded sold prices, this tool has nothing to work from.
What it is actually for is consistency. The same boat, worked twice, reaches the same answer by the same disclosed route — and every exclusion, every assumption and every extrapolation is named in the output rather than buried in it.
These are not preferences you can switch off. They are built into how the tool works.
The whole reason the tool exists is that these are applied the same way every time. Open any of them for the reasoning.
Every figure, adjustment, ledger line and sentence of the narrative is produced by fixed rules applied to what you enter, so the same entries always give the same result and every step can be rebuilt by hand. A language model can answer the same question two ways; a valuation must not.
Artificial intelligence is used in two places only. It reads the documents and listings you supply (a sales table, a listing page, a guide report, a receipt) into the fields, for you to check; equipment it finds on a listing arrives by name, with the dollar values left blank for you. And it answers questions in the built-in guide, which explains and never calculates.
The finished analysis says so in its own words: the narrative closes on it, and the broker's document carries it as its last section. It states that the opinions are solely those of the preparer.
What a buyer actually paid is the evidence. Everything else in the worksheet is context, corroboration, or a fallback for when recorded sales are thin.
An asking price is a hope, not a transaction. Listings appear in the document as market context. They can become a working basis — but only after an expected-sale deduction, and that deduction is measured from your own comparables wherever they carry both an asking and an achieved price.
This is the path you will use most when you are working before anyone has been aboard and there are no sold comparables yet. It is a supported route, not a compromise — but the document always says what measured the deduction.
Not by model year alone. A 2021 boat that sold in 2021 was nearly new when it changed hands; the same boat selling in 2025 was four years old. Those are different pieces of evidence and the tool treats them so — which is why a sale date is worth chasing down even when it is inconvenient.
A 10% and a 5% adjustment make 15%, not 15.5%. This is deliberate and it is not configurable. Compounding produces figures nobody can recompute by hand, and a figure your reader cannot check is a figure they can dismiss.
Two steps sit outside that rule by design, and the finished document says so. A market-conditions figure, for changes in the market since the sale, is applied to the sale price first, which is the order the sales comparison approach prescribes. The age normalization then restates that price as if the boat had sold at the subject's age. Only after those two steps are the condition, equipment and region adjustments added together and applied once. Nothing is compounded year on year.
Published guide figures are never quietly averaged into the answer. They sit alongside it as corroboration. If you want them to carry weight you say so, explicitly, using Blend sources under Value Basis in Section 6 — and the document records that you did.
You can exclude any sale. What you cannot do is make it disappear. An excluded comparable is named in the finished document along with why it was set aside.
Silently dropping inconvenient evidence is the exact thing this tool exists to prevent. If a sale is genuinely not comparable, saying so in the open is stronger than hoping nobody asks.
A figure that cannot be substantiated is omitted, never hedged. The narrative gets pasted into signed documents, and a hedge in a signed document is worse than a silence — it invites the question it was trying to dodge.
One calculation engine. Two documents, for two very different readers.
The concluded figure is identical in both modes. So is the primacy of sold comparables, and the rule that asking prices never enter the value at face value. If switching mode appears to move the number, it has not — something else changed. Mode changes who is being addressed, not the arithmetic.
A document that must withstand examination. Its reader is a bank, an insurer, a court, or a client's advisor — someone who was not present and is looking for reasons to doubt it.
So it justifies its method at length: the full narrative, every step from basis to conclusion, every excluded comparable named with its reason. It states a point figure, and states the replacement cost where one is entered.
A document that opens a conversation with an owner. Its reader is the seller, or a prospect deciding who to list with. It is not defending a figure to an examiner, so it does not justify its method in the same detail — it uses the concise narrative and leans on comparative graphics, so a reader can see the subject against the comparables rather than read an argument about them.
Its real job is often to help an owner's expectation meet the market. A replacement cost never appears in it: an owner told what a new one costs tends to measure a used boat against that figure rather than against the sales.
You choose a mode on the screen that appears before the terms, where Surveyor and Broker are offered, on your first visit to the worksheet. It is kept with your account after that, so you are not asked again, on this computer or any other. To change it later, use the Preparing as switch in the vessel header at the top of the worksheet, marked Marine Surveyor / Yacht Broker: beside the vessel’s name on a computer, under it on a phone. You can switch at any point. Everything you have entered comes with you: the vessel, every comparable and listing, the guide figures, your adjustments and your answers. Press Calculate afterward to see the analysis written for the other mode; the figure will be the same.
The one thing that may not come across is a photograph. If the photographs are too large for the browser to hold while the page reloads, the switch tells you before it happens and everything else still comes with you. In the rare case the browser cannot hold a copy at all, it warns you first that the worksheet will be cleared, and you can cancel.
The sections are numbered the same in both modes. The small gold label above the vessel’s name tells you which mode you are in: Marine Surveyor’s Valuation or Broker’s Market Analysis.
Your evidence will often be thinner, and the tool bends rather than breaks. Where a surveyor's document would refuse and state why, yours states a range and says what measured it. That is by design.
Where you start, where your work is kept, and how it is saved.
The worksheet needs you to be signed in. Open it signed out and you are taken to My valuations to sign in, and then straight back to the worksheet you were opening.
The opening terms are accepted once for your account. On your first visit to the worksheet, you choose your mode and then accept the terms. After that neither is shown again, on this computer or any other you sign in on, until the wording of the terms changes; then everyone is asked to accept the new wording, and only the terms are shown. On a computer you have not used before, the worksheet checks with your account for a moment before it opens, and if your account cannot be reached the terms are shown, so you can accept them and carry on.
Reading listings and files, Val, Save as PDF and Send to my phone need the sign-in too, and the server checks it each time. If your sign-in has ended, the worksheet says “Please sign in to use this.” at the top of the form, with a Sign in button that keeps your worksheet on the screen. If an account is suspended, the worksheet and My valuations say so in the same place: those features are turned off and new work is not saved, while the valuations already saved can still be opened and downloaded. Use Leave a comment on My valuations to ask about it.
Sign in, at the top of the site’s home, guide and privacy pages, opens the sign-in window right there, and once you are signed in takes you to My valuations. Create account, beside Sign in on the home page and on My valuations, opens the same window on its sign-up tab. If you are already signed in, the button reads My valuations and takes you straight there. My valuations is the page you start from: every valuation you have made is a card on it. If your sign-in ends while a worksheet is open (you signed out in another tab, say), the worksheet’s own Sign in in the upper right (below) signs you in again where you are, and keeps you on the worksheet you are working on.
Each card shows the vessel, its location and effective date, the mode it was prepared in, the concluded value (or Draft while it has none), when it was last saved and, for larger ones, how much storage it uses. A search box and filters narrow the cards to drafts, completed valuations, or one mode. Press Open to carry on working in the worksheet; a card prepared in the other mode switches the worksheet to that mode as it opens. While the card comes back, the worksheet shows Opening and the valuation’s name in place of the form, with how far it has got (the photographs are counted as they arrive), and shows the whole worksheet at once when every section is back, exactly as it was saved, reviews kept as is included. If that takes much longer than it should, it says so and offers Try again and My valuations. Clicking anywhere else on a card does not open it: it points at Open, which pulses, so a stray click never takes you away from your cards. The card’s menu holds the rest:
Deleting several at once. Press Select, beside the sort menu, and a checkbox appears on every card. Tick the ones you want, or click anywhere on a card to tick it. Select all ticks every valuation the current filter and search are showing, and says how many (“Select all 37”), so filter to Drafts first to clear out old drafts only. A bar at the foot of the screen keeps the count in view, with Delete selected and Cancel; Escape also leaves Select. Delete selected asks first, naming how many and listing each one, and says so when any of them has been tipped on. For 20 or more, or for every valuation on your account, type DELETE to confirm. The whole selection goes in one step and cannot be undone. If any could not be deleted, the page says which and leaves them ticked so you can try again.
The page also links to the worksheet, this guide and the main site, and takes a comment. A tip is left from the card it thanks, not from the side of the page.
Quick references are four small calculators, plain arithmetic for reference only. None of them ever enters a valuation:
The calculator you last used opens first next time on the same browser.
Tipping is optional, and each tip belongs to one valuation. A card that has been calculated shows where it stands:
Coming back from the payment, My valuations opens on a full-screen Thank you! and, once the payment is confirmed, says Confirmed. with the name of the card that is now gold. See your gold card takes you to it and lights it up as it turns gold; so does closing the thank-you with You’re welcome, its ×, Escape or a click outside it. It closes by itself after a few seconds, and waits while the pointer or the keyboard is on it.
A draft that has never been calculated shows neither. A copy is a new valuation, so it starts untipped. In the worksheet, Leave a tip sits beside Feedback just below the Calculate bar. It is linked to the valuation you have open, and a valuation that has been tipped for does not ask again.
While you are signed in, the worksheet saves itself. Drafts are saved too: saving begins as soon as the subject vessel has a model year, make or model, and every change after that is saved a few seconds after you stop typing. Pressing Calculate or Recalculate saves the worksheet and, once the result is up to date, the finished document beside it, which is what the card’s Download HTML and Save as PDF give you. Reset section clears part of the valuation you have open, so it saves to the same card; a new valuation, from Start a new valuation on My valuations, gets a card of its own. Reloading the page brings back the valuation you had open, from its card, with the same Opening panel while it does; if the reload came while a change was still being saved, the page opens blank instead and says the valuation is saved in My valuations, with Open it again beside it.
When Fairlead Value is updated while you have a worksheet open, a small notice appears just above the Calculate bar: “Fairlead Value has been updated.” It also says whether your work is saved, and says “Your work is saved” only while that is true. Reload saves anything not yet saved first, then reopens the same valuation at the section you were in; if the save fails, the page stays where it is and says so. Later puts the notice away until the next update. The page you have open keeps running the version it loaded until it is reloaded, so reload when it suits you.
The bar at the top of the worksheet says where things stand, and a small pill at the bottom left, just above the Calculate bar, speaks up only when something needs you: a save that has failed, or a save the page is waiting for before it takes you to My valuations or signs you out. Otherwise the pill stays out of the way, so it never sits over a field you are typing in.
The pill is never part of the document and does not print.
A dark bar runs across the top of the worksheet, the same bar My valuations carries. At its left is the Fairlead Value mark and, where the tool is offered through a partner, the partner’s logo, which takes you to the partner’s own site. Signed in, the bar also repeats the save pill’s word (Saving…, Saved with the time, or Not saved) so you can see it at the top of the page; where the bar is short of room, on a phone or beside a partner’s logo, it shows only the pill’s colored dot. The worksheet’s upper right holds the way back to your cards, the site’s other pages, and your account:
Under the bar sits the vessel header. Its small label says which document you are preparing, and once Section 1 has a year, make or model, the vessel’s name appears beneath it in large type, kept up to date as you type. A line under the name gives the location, the effective date and the asking price, which a surveyor’s worksheet marks Reference only (a broker’s shows the list price there). A Draft tag sits beside the label until the worksheet has a current calculation, and comes back when an entry changes after one.
Under the name, the Method line says, in one line, what this worksheet’s last calculation rested on: how many sold comparables it retained (and how many were excluded), whether they were blended with guide data or listings and at what weights, the expected-sale deduction where listings stood in for sales, the curve fitted to replacement cost where that was the depreciation scale, and how far Section 6 moved the figure, for example 6 sold comps blended with guide data 50/50, with a 15% upward adjustment. It is read from the calculation, never worked out separately. Before the first calculation it reads Not yet calculated; once an entry changes it grays and ends as of the last calculation. Point at it, click it or press Enter on it and a note opens over the page, How this figure was reached: the line in full, the sales retained and each one excluded with its reason, the depreciation scale, Section 6’s parts, the rounding, and for a broker’s range what its width measured, with See how the figure is built to go to the build-up; Escape or a press elsewhere closes it. On a phone it waits for a wider screen, so the header stays short.
The Preparing as switch is beside the header on a computer and under it on a phone. The small (i) beside its label explains the two modes when you point at it, click or tap it, or reach it with the keyboard and press Enter: switch at any time, everything you have entered comes with you, the concluded figure does not change, and a broker’s analysis applies the same methodology but is not an appraisal, and says so. Escape, a second press, or a press anywhere else closes it.
Under the vessel header sit four summary tiles, each a link to the part of the worksheet it sums up:
On a phone the tiles are not shown, so the first field is not pushed down; the strip at the top carries the figure there.
On a phone or a tablet, the steps and the figure sit in a slim step strip across the top of the screen: a dot for each step, ticked, flagged or dashed as the rail on a wide screen shows them, and the figure at the right end, with a small dot that is green when the figure is up to date and brass when the inputs have changed since. Tap a dot to go to its step, or the figure to go to the conclusion. A section you reach from the strip lands below it, never under it. A screen reader hears each dot by its section’s full name. On a phone turned on its side the strip and the Calculate bar slim down, so they take less of the short screen.
Nothing floats over the fields. The Calculate bar holds Ask Val; Leave a tip and Feedback sit in the page just below the Calculate bar; the save pill appears only when a save needs you, and then above the bar. When you tap into a field that the strip, the bar or the sales’ stuck column headings would cover, including when a phone’s keyboard opens, the page scrolls just enough to bring the field into the clear; with the keyboard, it does the same for anything Tab reaches. A button you click is left where it is, so the click always lands. On a phone the sales’ sort buttons stay on one line and scroll sideways.
Every numbered section is a card in its own color, the color running down its left edge, behind its heading and in its number, and under its step in the menu at the left (or in the strip at the top on a phone), so you can tell where you are at a glance. Each of the six has a color of its own: teal, amber, blue, magenta, green and orange, in order.
The Worksheet strip under Preparing as is for when you are signed out, which, now that the worksheet needs a sign-in, is rare: a worksheet whose sign-in ended while it was open, or a copy of the tool that has no accounts. It holds the file buttons Save to file and Open file, which keep a worksheet on your own computer instead. Signed in, the strip is not shown, except to carry a message, such as the figure a worksheet you have just opened recalculated to; the file buttons are on My valuations, as Download file and Open a file.
Each account holds up to 1 GB and up to 200 valuations. Photographs are what take the room, so each one is stored once and shared by every valuation and copy that uses it. The Storage tile on My valuations shows how much of the 1 GB you are using and how many valuations you have saved against the limit, for example “37 of 200 valuations”; its bar turns amber from 90% and red at the limit, where a new valuation cannot be saved until you delete some (Select deletes several at once). A copy that would go past the limit is not made. A photograph that would go past it is not stored, and then the worksheet it is in is not saved at all: the pill shows Not saved with the reason, and every later change to that worksheet stays unsaved until you remove the photograph or make room. Nothing already saved is touched. Deleting valuations you have finished with makes room, and Save to file keeps a copy on your own computer meanwhile.
The single most useful habit in the tool. Learn this before the field list.
Almost every data section has a drop target, and Sections 1 and 3 also accept a listing address. Drag a file onto it, paste an image or copied text, or, in those two sections, give it a link, and the tool reads the specification out for you.
Typing a specification out of a document you already have open is the slowest path in the tool, and it is the one most people default to. The manual fields are always there underneath as a fallback — but reach for them second.
Beside every drop target except the logo's sits a Paste button. Section 5 has no drop target and so no Paste button; its one figure is typed or pasted into its field. The button exists so the tool works without a keyboard shortcut and on a phone, where dragging a file is awkward. If dragging is not available to you, that button is the route.
A screenshot is not only read for its figures. The vessel's photograph is cut out of it and attached: to the subject vessel in Section 1, and to the listing rows in Section 3, one picture per listing where the screenshot shows several cards. The page around it goes — the filter sidebar, the specification table, the broker's contact form — because the year, the price and the location are already in the row's own fields, and carrying them in the picture as well only duplicates them.
The cut is the software's proposal, not a decision. Every picture it takes keeps the file it came from within reach: press Use full screenshot and the whole image comes back in place of the crop. That button appears only on a picture that was actually cropped, and swapping to the full screenshot does not change whether the picture goes into the document. Check that each picture is the vessel you expect: a listing row's picture waits for you to tick it in (unless you have ticked Show photographs in the report in Section 3, which the tool remembers), and the subject vessel's is ticked for you. A neat crop of the wrong boat reads as a verified photograph of the right one.
Where the screenshot cannot be cut into exactly one picture per listing — a page layout the tool cannot read, or a card partly scrolled off the frame — nothing is cut and every row carries the whole screenshot instead. The note under the drop zone says which of the two happened, so you can tell a screenshot the tool could not split from one it never tried to split.
The boat being valued, its specification, and the date the value speaks to.
Year, make, model, length, beam, draft, engines, hours, fuel, hull material and configuration, water use, and location. Also the subject's own asking price if she is currently listed, and the effective date of the valuation. For a broker the price field is the (Expected) List Price: the price she is listed at, or the figure the seller has in mind.
The effective date starts as the day you begin the worksheet. Under it, Use the calculation date is ticked on every new worksheet: each time you press Calculate or Recalculate, the date becomes that day’s, so a valuation you finish a week after starting it is dated the day you calculated it. Untick it, or type or pick a date yourself (which unticks it), and the date is fixed: it stays as you set it however often you recalculate. The line under the field says which it is. Only your own press of Calculate moves the date; reopening a saved worksheet, switching mode or opening a shared copy never does. A worksheet saved before this box existed, and a copy someone shared with you, open with it unticked, keeping the date they were saved with.
These fields sit in the folded Vessel details panel below the drop target. It opens by itself once a read or a paste has filled it; open it yourself to review the figures or to type them in.
Identify the subject vessel. Anything captured below fills the editable fields for your review; nothing reaches the analysis unreviewed.
These sit apart from the main fields, which is why they get overlooked. Include image appears inside the drop target once you paste a listing address, Propose improvements sits inside the drop target itself, and Add a photograph of this vessel is in the folded Vessel details panel, beside the year, make, model and location.
Ticked by default, and the tool remembers your choice for next time. Brings the listing's photograph in along with the specification when a listing address is read. It governs the address route only: a dropped screenshot or PDF supplies its photograph either way, as described under Getting data in.
Off by default. When you tick it, reading a listing does a second pass and returns an itemized list of material improvements it can see, each with a rough contributory value. Those land in the improvements list in Section 6.
They are a starting point to edit, not a finished answer. But this is by far the fastest way to populate improvements from a broker's own equipment list, and it works from a dropped PDF or screenshot as well as from a listing address.
Attaches your own photograph of the vessel when no listing or screenshot supplied one. The vessel has a single photograph: once a picture is attached, by any route, this button gives way to Replace and Remove. Include in the report decides whether it actually prints, and it is ticked for you when a picture arrives.
Under the subject’s engine fields, Engine hours priced from engine life turns each comparable’s Engine Hours adjustment into a worked dollar figure instead of a number you choose. Give it three things:
The price over the life is the cost of an engine hour. Each comparable is adjusted by the difference between its hours and the subject’s, at that cost, for each of the subject’s engines: more hours than the subject adjusts it up, fewer adjusts it down. Hours past the expected life count as fully used and no more, so two vessels both past it are not adjusted for hours at all. A comparable with a different number of engines is still a matter for the Engines adjustment; it is not counted again here.
The ledger shows the arithmetic on every comparable’s line and states the three inputs; the narrative says how engine hours were priced and that the figures are yours. Untick Use this to price each comparable’s engine hours, or leave the price empty, and every Engine Hours adjustment is entered by hand as before, with whatever you had typed brought back. A valuation saved before this existed opens exactly as it was saved.
The same price serves Section 5. Where the replacement cost is marked as leaving the engines out (as BUC’s does for outboards) and Section 5’s own New engine cost is empty, the engines are added at this price for each engine, and Section 5 says so; a figure typed there is used instead. Bear in mind that this price leaves out installation and rigging, which a new vessel’s price includes.
Once a listing address has been read and the vessel’s details are in, the drop target folds down to a slim strip headed Read from the listing (Read from the page for a broker): the vessel’s photograph, the address that was read, how many vessel details are now entered for your review and, when the read happened on this visit, its time. The count is of details entered, by the read or by you. A worksheet opened again from My valuations comes back with the same strip, headed Listing address (Vessel page for a broker) instead, because a saved worksheet does not record whether its address was read or typed. Read again reads the same address once more without leaving the strip: while it runs the button reads Stop, a progress bar runs beneath the strip and a status line under the box says how it is going. Replace opens the full drop target with the address selected, ready for a different one. Paste, Propose improvements and Include image stay in view beside the strip, and a thin Add more detail line under it still takes screenshots, PDFs, Word files or pasted listing text, for whatever the listing left out. A new worksheet, or one filled without an address, shows the full drop target.
The evidence. This section carries more weight than all the others together.
The sales sit in one compact table, a row to a sale. Each row shows the sale’s number, the vessel’s name with its year, make and model, the sold date, the sold price with the list price and the list-to-sold spread under it, the age at sale against the subject’s age, the age adjustment, the Indication (the sale carried to the subject), and a Retained switch. Click a row to edit in place: its fields open beneath it — year, description, vessel name, location, list price, sold price, sold date and source — and click the row again to close them. A new or empty sale opens ready to fill; a sale with something to fix, or with your cursor in it, stays open. A closed row still shows any warning it carries — a likely duplicate, a review banner or a missing sold price — under its line.
Every per-comparable adjustment lives inside that sale’s own row, in the adjustments block of its editor — not in a central table. That is the single most common thing people hunt for and cannot find.
The age, the age adjustment and the indication come from the last calculation. They are the figures the calculation produced, shown again on the row, never worked out a second time. Before the first calculation they read “—”. Change an input after calculating and they turn gray and read as of last calculation until you calculate again; on a phone each card says so under its own indication. Removing a sale after calculating does the same. The sold date and the prices you type show as you type them.
Sorting. Press a column heading to sort by it, and again to reverse it. The headings stay on screen as you scroll a long list. Sorting changes only the order on the screen: each sale keeps its number, and the analysis document and the saved worksheet keep the order you entered the sales in. Your browser remembers the sort you chose.
Where a sold date could be read either way round, such as 03/04/2025, the row carries a small Read as M/D/Y tag beside it: month first, which is how the worksheet reads it. Check it against the source if the sale might have been recorded day first. On a phone each sale is a short card showing the name, the sold price, the indication and the Retained switch; tap it to edit.
Above the table, once you have calculated, a chart draws each retained sale as a line from what it sold for (a hollow dot) to its indication, the figure after it is carried to the subject’s age and adjustments (a filled dot), against a vertical line at the concluded value. A long line is a sale doing a lot of work to reach the subject; a cluster of filled dots around the line is evidence that agrees with itself. Point at a sale on the chart and its row is highlighted, and the other way round.
The chart shows the last calculation’s figures and nothing else. It does not appear before the first calculation, and turns gray when inputs have changed since, until you calculate again. It is a worksheet aid only and never appears in the analysis document. The depreciation-scale chart further down the section is a different picture: it shows the scale itself, with each sale marked on it.
Source sits on its own line in each sale’s editor and records where that sale came from — SoldBoats.com, YachtWorld, a brokerage report. When you drop a screenshot or a PDF, the read fills it in for you if the page identifies itself; where it cannot tell, it leaves the box empty rather than guessing, and you fill it in. Apply to all copies your entry into every comparable that is still blank, so six sales off one service take one typing. It never overwrites a source you set deliberately on another row.
Every adjustment can carry a reason. Once an adjustment row holds a figure, a Reason box opens under it: “no gyro stabilizer; the subject has one”, for instance. It is optional and it never changes the figure. What you write is printed beside that adjustment in the ledger, in a short table of reasons under the comparables in the analysis document, and in one paragraph of the narrative, where sales sharing the same reason are named together in one sentence. Apply to all beside it copies the reason to every other comparable carrying the same kind of adjustment whose reason is still blank; listings have the same box and are kept separate.
The published guidance on what a valuation should contain asks it to show where the information behind the opinion of value came from, naming the services used. The source you enter prints beside that comparable in the finished document, so a reviewer can check an input rather than take it on trust.
It is also what makes the closing line about particulars being “as reported by the cited sources” true.
| Adjustment | Entered as | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Regional Adjustment | Percent | By hand. |
| Condition Adjustment | Percent | By hand. |
| Equipment Adjustment | Dollars | Contributory value, not installed cost. |
| Freshwater / Saltwater | Percent | Direction is set automatically from the two vessels' water use, so it unlocks only when both are stated and they differ. |
| Gas / Diesel | Percent | Same automatic-direction rule. |
| Engine Hours | Percent or dollars | Direction from the hours figures. With the engine life filled in under Section 1 (Engine hours priced from engine life), the dollar figure is worked out for you and the box cannot be typed into. |
| Hull Material | Percent | Locks unless both hull materials are stated and differ. |
| Engines | Dollars | Type, brand, horsepower and number of engines, in one figure. Contributory value, not what a repower cost — the same rule as Equipment. By hand, and deliberately never computed: value does not scale with horsepower on any rule that holds across builders. |
| Vessel Size / Type | Percent | By hand, and deliberately never computed. |
Several of these stay locked until both vessels' attributes are filled in. That is the tool declining to guess a direction. Completing the attributes on both sides turns a manual estimate into a signed, directional adjustment — which is one of the cheapest ways to strengthen a thin file.
The control is in this section, labeled Depreciation Scale. A surveyor starts on the fitted curve and a broker on Martin; the reasons are set out below. Beneath it sit the annual rate, shown when Linear is chosen, and the market-conditions entries for each sale year.
The scales exist to compare age at date of sale — how old each vessel was at its own relevant date — so that a model-year difference and a sale-date difference collapse into one comparison instead of being counted twice. That is chronological age. What the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) calls effective age, the age a vessel's condition implies, enters through the condition percentage in Section 6, not through the scale; feeding it into the scale as well would count the same thing twice.
Under the scale picker, once a Replacement Cost New is entered, a chart appears plotting each sale at what it actually achieved as a share of replacement cost, against its age. The curves are drawn across those points — the one in use solid, and a Martin table dashed for comparison (the Commercial table when Recreational is the one in use).
The gap between a dot and a line is the error that scale makes on that sale. That is what this chart adds: the depreciation-scale chart further down marks each comparable on the curve, so every point sits on the line because that is where it is drawn, and it can never show you whether the scale was right. This one can.
It is drawn under Martin too, so you can see how well — or badly — the published scale fits your own sales before deciding whether to switch.
The fitted card also shows replacement cost times the curve's retained value at the subject's age: what the same curve, read at the subject's own age, says the subject would be worth by the cost approach. Reference only; it never enters the value.
Above the chart sit three cards, in a fixed order: the fitted curve, the Martin Scale, and the linear rate. They are also the picker: press one and the worksheet switches to it. Each is headed with the scale it measures — Fitted to these sales, Martin Scale, Linear rate — and reads the same way down: its figure, what that figure is, what choosing it would do, then Select or In use. Only the card in use is outlined, and choosing one does not move the page: the card you pressed stays where it was under your pointer. The order does not move either, so the card you reached for last time is where you left it; the closest-fitting scale is marked rather than shuffled to the front. The fitted curve is never marked while its own caution is showing: it is scored against the same sales it was fitted to, so it nearly always scores closest, and where the caution says its decline came from the replacement cost rather than from those sales, marking it would contradict the warning printed on it.
Martin is one card carrying two tables. Martin publishes a Recreational and a Commercial table, and the switch under that card's heading chooses between them. The finished document says which of the two was applied.
The first two cards show how far that curve sits from what your sales actually achieved — lower is closer. Linear shows its own rate instead, the one on its slider, because it cannot be scored the same way: it applies a flat rate to the age difference between two vessels rather than describing what a vessel retains from new, so there is no curve to measure a sale against. Its value figure is real; a fit score for it would have to be invented.
Each card that is not in use also carries a second figure — what choosing it would do to the comparable-sales average, in dollars and as a percentage, measured against the scale you are on. That is the number worth looking at before you switch scales on fit quality alone: two scales can differ enormously in how well they fit and barely at all in what they conclude, which happens whenever your comparables are close to the subject's own age. The card in use carries no such figure, because pressing it changes nothing.
It is the comparable-sales average, not the concluded value. The condition percentage, any improvement items and the rounding are applied after that average and are identical whichever curve you choose — so the swing you see is the swing that reaches the bottom line, quoted one step earlier where it can be stated exactly.
Where a scale has to reach past its published range to price one of your sales, the card says so under the figure. The number is still shown: continuing a curve beyond its table is what this tool does everywhere, disclosed rather than hidden.
A surveyor opens on the fitted curve. A broker opens on Martin, which needs nothing but the boat's age. A broker who wants the curve can select it and enter a replacement cost in Section 5; the figure is used to fit the curve, and the broker's document describes the curve by its method without ever stating the figure. Switching mode keeps whichever scale is in use, so the number does not move.
If the curve cannot be fitted, Martin is applied instead and the document says so. A new worksheet has no replacement cost and no sales, so that is the ordinary state at the start. The line under the picker tells you the curve could not be fitted, what is being applied in its place, and what is missing; the finished document states the same thing, so a reader never sees a scale named without knowing it was a substitute for the one that was chosen.
A curve can fit and still not be measured from your sales. The curve is pinned to full replacement cost at age zero. Where your sales all fall within a few years of each other in age, that pin, rather than the sales, can end up setting the whole rate of decline. So the tool also fits a second curve without the pin; if your sales on their own show no decline with age, or fall at less than half the rate the curve applies, the line under the picker, the fitted card, the ledger and the written analysis all say so, and where the sales do fall they give the rate they fall at rather than calling it no decline. The suggestion that a published scale may be the more dependable basis is made only on the worksheet, in the line under the picker: it is for you, so the narrative and the analysis document state the finding without it. The curve is still applied, so the choice stays yours. Section 5 prints the same rate of decline beside the replacement cost as you type it, because that figure is what the curve is pinned to.
If your replacement cost came from a guide and the boat has outboards, read this first. BUCValuPro says on its own report that for an outboard vessel the engines are not included in its replacement value. Take that figure at face value and it is short by the engines — and because the curve divides every sale by it, the shortfall lands straight in the depreciation rate. On a real set it turned a 4.8%-a-year decline into 0.5%, and the curve still looked perfectly plausible.
Section 5 carries a tick-box: the replacement cost above excludes the engines. Tick it and enter the cost of new engines of the type fitted — not their depreciated value — with a note of where the price came from: a BUC engine listing, the manufacturer, a dealer quote, an online retailer or a published repower price. The tool adds them, shows you the whole-vessel total it will measure against, and the finished document states that the figure is composed of the vessel plus new engines, naming the source. Tick the box without entering a figure and it warns you rather than carrying on with a number you have just said is wrong.
It needs a Replacement Cost New in Section 5. That is what turns a sale price into a proportion, and without it the curve cannot be fitted at all — the picker says so rather than quietly doing nothing. It also needs at least three retained sales (sales you have not excluded) carrying a price and a year.
The curve is forced through full replacement cost at age zero, on the reasoning that a brand-new vessel is worth what it costs to replace. That constraint is what keeps the fit steady on the four or five sales a real report carries.
An excluded comparable does not shape it. A sale you set aside is out of the average for a stated reason, and letting it set the rate of decline would put it back into the figure through a side door.
It carries no authority beyond your own sales, and the document says so. A published scale has to disclose that it is being used beyond its stated purpose; this one discloses its own limit instead — that it would change if the set of sales changed. The written analysis states how many sales it was fitted from, the replacement cost they were measured against, and the annual decline they imply, so a reader can reproduce it.
Past a scale's published range the value is extrapolated, and every affected row says so. If the fleet is older than 35 years on Martin’s Recreational table, or 40 on its Commercial table, that disclosure appears in the output.
The scales are applied here as a ratio between the subject's retained value and the comparable's: each comparable's price is multiplied by the share of value the scale gives for the subject's age, divided by the share it gives for the comparable's age at sale. Replacement cost cancels out of that arithmetic. That is an extension beyond the scales' stated purpose, and the narrative discloses it.
Under Market Conditions Adjustment, each sale year opens on the Boats Group market index and fills its figure from the published index, picking the length segment that matches your subject. It is held in the tool, so there is nothing to fetch and nothing to type. Change the source if you have something better; a source you have chosen is never replaced.
The source list is in two groups. Read by the tool holds the three it can fill on its own, in order of priority: the Boats Group index, the spread of your own comparables, and the BLS producer price index. Entered by you holds the published services and your own data, where you type the figure. Choosing the BLS index reads it at once — there is no separate lookup to press. If the read fails, the row says so and offers Try again. The BLS series it reads follows the subject's Propulsion in Section 1, and is boat building as a whole until that is set. It can be changed under Vessel type in Section 5, which appears once a replacement cost is entered and the escalation box there is ticked.
The figure carries its full citation into the written analysis: the report, the region, the length segment, and the two years it was measured between. That is not ceremony. The same report publishes a Global table and a North America table with the same row headings and different figures — 26 to 35 feet reads $129,063 in one and $136,149 in the other — so a citation naming only the publisher would not identify the number it is attached to.
Sales back to 2019. The latest report (Year-End 2025) covers 2023 to 2025. For an earlier sale the tool links each year’s change from the newest edition that reports it: the 2023 Year-End Index for 2021 to 2023, and the 2021 Market Index for 2019 to 2021. The changes are multiplied together, never averaged. Editions revise their own past figures, sometimes a great deal, which is why only the newest one is used for each year and each is named. The earlier editions give United States figures and the 2025 edition North American ones; the citation says so. Where a figure was published rounded, the citation says the change is approximate. There was no Year-End 2024 edition.
The figure for a sale year is the movement from that year to the latest year the report publishes, which is what carries an older sale toward today. For the report's final year there is no later movement, and the row says so; leave it blank or use another source. It needs the subject's Length Overall in Section 1, since the index is published by segment. Enter the length after the comparables and the rows fill themselves; until then each says which field to fill rather than leaving an empty box.
If you select the source and type your own figure instead, the citation is not attached to it. A number you supplied is yours, and the document will not credit it to a table it did not come from.
The Retained switch at the end of each row is the exclude control, the Exclude as outlier choice in the sale’s editor. Turn it off and the sale leaves the calculation, and the finished document names it, with the reason.
Excluding a sale asks why, right there. The sale’s Reason box opens on the row with quick picks: Outlier, Refit or repower not comparable, Distressed sale, Not the same model and Other. A pick fills the box with its words, and you can edit them or write your own; Other leaves the box for you to fill. What the box holds is exactly what the analysis prints as the reason, word for word.
While you are still in the sale, writing its reason, the row stays where it is. Once you move on to anything else, it moves to an Excluded group after the retained sales, headed Excluded sales stay named in the analysis, with the reason. Like sorting, this changes only the order on the screen; the sale keeps its number. Turn the switch back on and the sale returns to the retained rows, with anything you wrote kept in case you change your mind again.
Once an excluded sale has its reason and you have moved on, it folds to its one-line summary like the other sales, under a light veil, with its reason on one line beneath, as Reason: followed by what you wrote; point at a long one to read it whole, or click the row to open it and change it. While the reason is empty, the reason box and its picks stay open.
A reason is optional. Nothing flags a sale excluded without one: the reason box simply stays open on the sale, and Calculate runs as usual. A sale excluded without a reason is described in the analysis as excluded as a statistical outlier, so leave the box empty only when that is what you mean. Choosing Outlier from the picks prints your own determination: “By the determination of the surveyor, this comparable was identified as a statistical outlier and therefore omitted from consideration” (the broker, in broker mode). Any other reason prints after Reason for exclusion:, in your words.
Where a sale is flagged for review, that banner also carries Exclude for this reason. Pressing it does both steps at once: it excludes the sale and writes the measurement into the reason box, so the document says exactly what was measured rather than whatever you could recall of it afterward. The wording is a measurement, never a verdict — it states the figure and the line it crossed, and stops there, because whether the sale is sound is your judgment and not the tool's. It stays editable, and a reason you have already written is never overwritten.
If you have looked and the sale belongs, press Keep as is beside it instead. The sale stays retained, nothing in the figures or the document changes, and the notice folds to one quiet line, Reviewed · kept as is, with Undo beside it. The decision is saved with the worksheet, and it holds while the same reason applies, through changes to the set as a whole (market conditions, the depreciation scale, another sale excluded). The notice comes back to be judged again only if that sale’s own entries change, if a new kind of reason appears for it, or if what was measured (its total adjustment, or its distance from the median) grows by 10 percentage points or more beyond what it was when you kept it.
What "flagged for review" actually measures. A sale is flagged when its adjusted indication sits further from the median of the retained sales than 2.5× the median absolute deviation of that set — a measure of how varied your comparables already are, so a genuinely wide set does not flag its own cheapest member. The banner states both figures: how far this sale sits, and where the line falls for this particular set. It also says which side of the median the sale sits on and where it ranks among the retained sales, and its label marks the highest and the lowest, so two flagged rows can be told apart at a glance. A sale can be flagged and still belong; the banner says so, and being the highest or the lowest is never a reason to exclude on its own.
Use it for a real sale you have decided not to rely on. Do not use it to tidy away a row that was entered twice — that is a data-entry mistake rather than a piece of evidence with a story, and it should be removed instead. See Banners and warnings.
Current asking prices — market context, and a fallback basis when sales are absent.
Paste several listing addresses at once into the box built for it. Fetch listing photos controls whether images come with them.
Each listing folds to one line, as a sale does in Section 2: its number, its year and description with the location beneath, how long it has been listed, its asking price and, once you have calculated, its age adjustment and its age-adjusted asking price. A dash stands where a figure is shown only after Calculate. Click the line to open the listing and change it. Where the days were counted from when the listing’s photographs were first uploaded, rather than typed by you, the line carries a derived tag and a note under the open listing gives the date. The analysis document then reports that figure as “at least”, and the note comes back when you reopen a saved valuation. Type the days yourself and the tag, the note and the “at least” all go. A broker who uploads a listing’s photographs again would otherwise make an old listing look new, so this browser remembers the earliest date it has seen for each listing: read the same listing here again and its days are counted from the earlier date, and the note gives both. That memory is this browser’s alone; a listing first read on another computer is not known here.
This is also where the deduction lives — the discount applied when listings actually inform the value rather than merely providing context. Its basis is a choice:
Measured is better whenever the evidence supports it, because it is defensible. A typed figure is an opinion, and it will be read as one. Whichever you choose, the written narrative says so, in parentheses beside the percentage: measured from the comparable sales, or determined by you.
Active listings are normalized for age exactly as sales are, measured at the effective date because a listing has not sold. Where that is the only evidence you have, the document names the scale that produced every percentage and discloses when a factor was read past the end of the scale's published table. When an adjustment exceeds 50%, the worksheet tells you in Section 3, naming each listing to check (Section 2 does the same for sales). That caution is for you: it is not written into the narrative or the analysis document.
If you calculate with no recorded sales at all, the analysis document says once that the sales comparison approach has not been developed, and Section 2 tells you what would strengthen the valuation. That advice is for you too, and is not written into the document.
If you set the expected-sale deduction to zero while listings are carrying the value, the asking prices enter the concluded figure as asked. The worksheet cautions you on screen, and the ledger, the narrative and the concise statement all record that no deduction was applied. It is a caution and not a refusal: the judgment stays yours. It also says which kind of zero it is, because no sale measuring a gap, a measured gap you chose not to apply, and sales that achieved at or above asking are three different positions.
Where the comparables sold at or above asking, there is no spread to measure and the control falls back to manual rather than inventing a premium.
Published figures, carried as corroboration.
BUCValuPro, J.D. Power and Boat Value Guide figures — low and high, and what that range represents. Drop the guide page or a screenshot of it rather than transcribing. Some reports print a single cited figure, as Price Digests does with its Retail column. The tool puts that figure in Low, leaves High blank, and says so under the drop zone, naming the report's own Low and High figures that were not used. The document then describes a value, not a range. Typing works the same way: put a single figure in Low and it is used as it stands. This holds whether the report is the primary one or an added source.
Where the report prints a range, Which figure in this range the value uses offers Low end, Average and High end, each showing the dollar figure it would produce. It sits directly beneath the Value Range boxes in the Primary guide report, once both are filled. Average is the default.
This only reaches the concluded value where guide data is the basis or is blended in. Where sold comparables or active listings are the basis and the guide is not blended in, it changes nothing. Whatever you pick, the ledger and the narrative name the end you chose, so the document never calls a figure an average when it is not one. Where you are averaging several reports, the same end is taken from every one of them: mixing one guide's high figure with another's midpoint would produce a number no sentence could honestly describe. The choice is hidden when the report gives one figure, or both bounds are the same, because there is then nothing to choose between.
Add as many guide sources as you consulted. By default only the primary report reaches the value; the rest are disclosed in the document as reference, which is the tool's standing rule that guide data informs but does not drive.
Where you would rather rely on several, Average all included sources makes the guide figure the mean of every source that carries a provider and a figure and has not been excluded. It only matters where guide data is actually blended into the value.
Guide data is reference unless you make it the basis or blend it in, and the document says which. The ledger tags the guide row reference only, NOT used in the calculation, and the narrative states that the guide was cited for reference and gives the reason it was set aside: recorded sales outrank it, or the active listings did, or it was not among the sources you blended. The finished analysis lists guide data among the sources the value was derived from only when it actually was.
A source with a single published figure is taken at that figure, not half of it. A source you have excluded stays out, with the reason you gave. A figure with no provider named cannot be averaged in at all, because a number that cannot be cited has no business in a concluded value.
When you average, the ledger and the written analysis both name every source and its own figure, so a reader can reproduce the average rather than take it on trust.
Nothing entered here reaches the concluded value unless you deliberately choose Blend sources in Section 6 and include guide data among the contributing sources, or unless the worksheet has no sold comparables and no active listings at all. In that case the guide figure becomes the basis, and the document says the value rests on guide data rather than on recorded sales. Otherwise these figures sit beside the answer as corroboration and are reported as such.
What a new one would cost, and the fitted curve that needs it.
You need this section only for the fitted depreciation curve. The curve measures each sale as a proportion of what a new vessel costs, so it cannot be fitted without that figure. Enter it here, choose Fitted to these sales in Section 2, and you reach exactly the figure a surveyor would from the same evidence.
The replacement cost never appears in your document. Not in the analysis, the summary, the ledger or the narrative you can copy. An owner told what a new one costs tends to measure a used boat against that number rather than against the sales; your document describes the curve by its method instead. If you are not using the fitted curve, you can skip straight to Section 6.
Establishes what it would cost to replace the vessel, which an insurer or a lender may ask for alongside market value.
Say where the figure came from. The written analysis names the source beside the figure, and only a figure whose source is Valuation guide data is described in the guide report's own terms: BUCValuPro's definition of its replacement value, and anything the report says the figure leaves out. A figure from a dealership, the manufacturer or your own opinion is described as exactly that.
Some guide replacement values exclude the engines and say so on the report; BUCValuPro's does. Taken at face value, a figure like that describes a vessel with nothing on the transom. Tick The replacement cost above excludes the engines and two fields open.
When a guide report states that its replacement value excludes the engines or the outboards, the box is ticked for you as soon as the report is read, the two fields open, and a warning stays up until a new-engine cost is entered. It matters when the depreciation scale in Section 2 is set to Fitted to these sales, the default for a surveyor: that curve divides every sale by this figure, so a replacement cost that leaves the engines out can move the concluded value by several percent.
New engine cost, all engines takes the cost of new engines of the type fitted, for every engine, in one figure. Not their depreciated value: the whole replacement cost describes a new vessel, so the engines in it have to be new too. Where that price came from names the source, and the written analysis prints it beside the figure — a BUC engine listing, the manufacturer, a dealer quote, an online retailer, a published repower package, or one you describe yourself.
Everything else in this section is reported and never used to derive value. The fitted depreciation curve in Section 2 is the exception: it divides every comparable sale by the replacement cost to work out what proportion of a new vessel that sale represents. A replacement cost short by the engines makes every boat look like it held its value far better than it did. Where the curve is in use, the written analysis says the figure was used only to anchor it; on a published scale it says the figure is reported for reference.
Measured on a real set: a figure missing the engines produced a decline of 0.5% a year where the true figure gave 4.8%. The curve still fitted, and still looked plausible. Tick the box without entering a figure and the worksheet says so rather than quietly carrying on.
Look up index values from BLS appears once a replacement cost is entered and you tick Escalate an older figure to the effective date using published boat-building price indices, which you need only when your replacement figure is not current. Enter the year the figure is as of and choose the vessel type, and the button fills in the published boat-building producer price index for that year and for the effective year. That lets an older build cost be escalated to the effective date on published figures rather than on a guess — which is the difference between a number you can cite and a number you have to defend.
The busiest section, and the one people most often cannot find something in.
It holds four different kinds of thing. If you are hunting for a control and it is not in Sections 1 to 5, it is almost certainly here.
Pick one method. These are alternatives, not a stack — choosing one replaces the others. The condition slider sits near the top of this section; the choice of method, the improvements list and the receipts panel open from the Additional Adjustments button below it.
A slider with named steps and a percentage readout. This is where you mark the subject above or below average. Once the rating leaves Average, or carries a percentage, a Reason for this rating box opens beneath it. It is optional, and what you write is printed with the condition in the narrative, the concise statement, the ledger and the analysis document.
BUC’s published condition scale opens BUC’s own six bands beside your figure, and a line under the slider tells you where the percentage you have chosen sits against the published range for the equivalent band.
It is reference only. It never writes the figure for you, never changes the value, and never appears in the finished document. A percentage of your own that falls outside BUC’s range is not an error: BUC’s bands describe the national used-boat market, and local sales evidence may properly put you outside them. It is a difference worth being able to explain, which is why the tool shows it while you are typing rather than leaving you to meet it later.
The line stays silent when another adjustment method is driving the value, or where no inspection was carried out — in both cases there is no figure in force for a published range to be a reference for.
A list of individual items, each with a contributory value. Add Improvement Item adds a row. Clear all receipts belongs to the separate Receipts & documented cost panel below the list: it empties the receipts dropped there, not this list.
This is what Section 1's Propose improvements fills in, if it was ticked when the listing was read.
Include improvement description in the narrative decides whether the written analysis describes the improvements or merely accounts for them.
One lump sum instead of a list, for when the detail is not worth itemizing.
Money spent rarely returns dollar-for-dollar, and the document supplies the facts rather than an argument. If you judge that condition or equipment warrant a higher return, that case is yours to make to your client — from these same facts, and with what you know that the tool does not.
Three settings: No inspection, Limited inspection, or a full one — labeled Survey inspection in surveyor mode and Broker inspection in broker mode.
A surveyor opens on Survey inspection, because a surveyor filling in this worksheet has almost always just come off the vessel — the analysis is being written because the survey happened.
A broker opens on No inspection, because a broker is frequently working before anyone has been aboard.
If the default is wrong for this job, change it — it changes what the document says about the vessel, and can change the value. A surveyor preparing an analysis without having inspected the vessel must set this to No inspection. The closing paragraph will then say plainly that nobody went aboard, and no condition adjustment is applied to the value.
Comps primary is the default and is correct in nearly every case. Recorded sold prices are what a vessel actually changed hands for, and the tool takes the strongest evidence you have supplied.
Blend sources is for when more than one source carries genuine weight and none dominates — typically when sold comparables are few or absent. It opens the choice of which sources contribute: sold comparables, guide data, active listings. With only one source checked, or only one carrying figures, the value rests on that source alone and the document says so, naming it as the only source you selected rather than describing a blend.
When three sources are blended, the three weight fields keep themselves at 100: edit one and the field you have touched least recently absorbs the change, so any split can be typed in order. Type 25, then 50, then 25 and that is what you get.
The Additional Settings panel sits directly below Section 6 and stays closed until you click its heading. It holds what belongs to the valuation in front of you, under its own headings: The concluded value (rounding, and the step it rounds to: $100, $500 or $1,000), The narrative (whether the replacement cost is written into it, and how many items it names one by one), for a broker The report (whether the document carries its summary statement), and Review prompts, where the review threshold for flagging heavily-adjusted comparables lives, and defaults to 30%.
Settings is separate, and is yours rather than any one valuation’s. Open it from your account menu, from the link at the top of Additional Settings, or by clicking either “Click to add” link in the header of the analysis document. It holds the firm block — firm name, credentials, a standing line (a license or a membership), telephone, email, website, address, and the logo, which can be dropped straight onto its box. That block is what brands the finished document. It is the answer to “where do I put my logo” and “where do my credentials go”. Each line appears in the document’s header only if you fill it in: a blank field leaves no gap, and telephone, email and website share one line.
Settings also holds how a new valuation opens: with every section collapsed to its heading and one-line summary (untick it to have them all open), with Use the calculation date ticked under the effective date, and on the inspection level you choose there. None of these changes a valuation you have saved, which keeps what it was saved with.
At the foot of Settings, Reset to Defaults puts every setting back to the tool’s own: the ones you have changed on a worksheet (rounding, the depreciation scale, blend weights, condition percentages, the expected-sale deduction, your shared adjustment figures) and the choices above about how a new valuation opens. It asks first. The question carries a box, Also remove my details and company logo from the analysis document, which starts unticked: leave it so and your firm block and logo are kept; tick it and they go too. Nothing you have entered on any valuation is removed either way, though the valuation open at the time takes the tool’s settings with the rest.
Two more controls and a line sit outside the numbered sections: the Preparing as switch (Marine Surveyor / Yacht Broker), in the vessel header at the top of the worksheet, described under The two modes; the light and dark switch, in the bar at the very top of the page (see At the top of the worksheet); and the line Using your saved defaults., which appears only once one of your saved settings differs from the tool’s own, with a Settings button beside it that opens Settings, where Reset to Defaults is. A valuation opened from My valuations, or from a file, brings the settings it was saved with and is calculated on them, so it comes back exactly as it was; then the line reads Using the settings saved with this valuation. Opening one never changes your own defaults: only a setting you change yourself does, that one alone. There is no button that clears the whole worksheet: each section has its own Reset section (see Each section), and a new valuation starts from Start a new valuation on My valuations.
Appears in the navigation rail once a calculation exists.
Calculate Market Value is the button that produces the analysis. It sits in the Calculate bar, described below. Once there is a result it reads Recalculate, and whenever an input changes afterward the analysis on screen is out of date and the page says so by graying it out until you press it.
On a wide screen the rail down the left of the worksheet is a list of steps with the concluded figure above it, so the answer is in view wherever you are on the page. A surveyor sees the point figure; a broker sees the supported range. Before the first calculation the card reads Not yet calculated, with Calculate when the sales are in beneath it. After one it reads Up to date with the time it was calculated. Change any entry and the figure stays where it is but turns gray, marked Inputs changed · recalculate, until you press Recalculate: it is the last calculation’s answer, kept in view, never a new one worked out on the side. The card is a link to the conclusion. On a laptop-sized window, where the rail has no room for the card, the Calculate bar carries the figure instead, and on a tablet or a phone the step strip at the top does (see At the top of the worksheet).
Each step under it carries its full name and a one-line summary of what you have entered, for example “6 sales · 5 retained” for Section 2, or for Section 3 “3 listings”, which after a calculation adds whether they stood as “context only” or went “in the value basis”. Its circle carries the section’s color: a dashed ring around the number until the step has what it needs, then filled with the color and showing a tick. Sections 3, 4 and 5 are optional, and one you leave empty when you calculate was not used, so it shows Optional · not used with its number in a gray dashed outline: a choice you made, not an error. Nothing is flagged for an excluded sale without a reason, because a reason is optional. Click a step to go to its section.
The Calculate bar rides along the bottom of the window, under the worksheet column, so Calculate is always in reach; it never covers a field you are working in. It says where you stand:
Beside the state are Ask Val (where Val is available) and the Calculate button itself. Before the first result the button reads Calculate Market Value, shortened to Calculate on a phone or a tablet, and on a phone turned on its side. Once there is a result it reads Recalculate on every screen, with a small Out of date over it once an entry has changed (a phone on its side has no room for that line; the state beside the button still says Inputs changed). While it runs, the bar ticks off the steps the calculation took, in the order it took them, and only the ones it took: “Normalized 5 sales to the subject’s age” (the retained sales it could age-normalize; a sale with no model year is retained but not normalized, as the ledger says), Reconciled the value basis, “Applied Section 6” where something in Section 6 moved the figure and, where rounding is on, Rounded to the nearest $500 (or to the $100 or $1,000 you chose under Additional Settings); on a phone it shows each step as it is done. A single figure then counts up into place; a range simply appears. With reduced motion turned on in your device’s settings, the figure simply appears and nothing ticks, slides or counts. In a partner’s page the bar stays where it is, above the results, rather than riding the window.
On a wide screen, under the steps, the evidence meter headed Evidence shows how many of your sold comparables the last calculation retained out of how many it had, one bar to a sale, with an excluded sale’s bar dimmed. The Calculate bar repeats the bars on any screen wider than a tablet, and on a short window the rail leaves them to it. In a broker’s worksheet it also says whether the range was measured from the sales: 4 or more retained: the range is measured from the sales, or, with fewer, what it was measured from instead, as described under The range, and what measured it. It counts what the calculation used, so after an entry changes it says it is as of the last calculation.
Under the figure, How the figure is built lists every step from the basis to the conclusion, as the analysis document prints it in its own table: the value basis (the comparable average, or, where sources are blended, each source’s weighted share), the condition adjustment, the contributory value of improvements, each additional adjustment by its explanation, the rounding to the nearest $500 where rounding is on under Additional Settings (or to the nearest $100 or $1,000, if you chose that step there), and the concluded value they add up to. Each line is added once; none compounds. Under the lines, Round for reporting, to the nearest $500 is the same setting as the one in Additional Settings, placed where its effect shows, and names whichever step is in force: untick either and both untick, and the figure and the document follow at once, without a recalculation. Beneath them, Excluded, and still named in the analysis: lists every excluded sale with its reason, as the ledger records it. These are the document’s own lines shown again, never worked out a second time, so they can never disagree with it.
Beside the figure in the conclusion, a small line says whether it is current: Up to date with the time it was calculated, or Inputs changed · recalculate.
The analysis document appears beneath the figure in a frame headed The analysis document, with the note Shown as it will be printed and signed; the worksheet’s styling stops at this frame. Inside the frame is the document itself, on white, and it stays white whichever light or dark setting you choose. Where it still carries dashed prompts (to add a logo or your firm’s details), the note adds that they are left out of every copy. The frame itself never prints and is not part of any copy.
Under the figure, one line states the comparable average on the scale in use and what it would be under each of the others. The same three sales can average very differently depending on the depreciation scale; this line is where you see the size of that choice before you defend the number. It is on the worksheet only. The document discloses the scale that was used, not the ones that were not.
A surveyor's document states a single figure. A broker's document states a range around that same figure, and prints beneath it what the width was measured from.
A surveyor's document carries the full adjusted estimate statement. A broker's document carries the concise statement instead, under Summary of the analysis: one paragraph saying how the figure was built, closing on the same range and midpoint its band shows and never on a single value. It names no replacement cost.
If you want a better-supported range, the answer is more comparables, not a setting. There is no control that widens or narrows a band, because a width nobody can trace is worse than no width at all.
A seller's stated expectation is compared against the recommended asking range, never the value range. A seller's number is almost always a listing aspiration, and comparing it to market value overstates the gap by the whole list-to-sold spread.
Where no comparable carries both an asking and an achieved price, there is no observed spread, so no asking range is produced. The comparison falls back to the supported range and the document says plainly which range it used and why.
Recommended asking range $408,000 – $452,000
An asking price above the range it is compared with gets a warning marker. One below does not, and that asymmetry is deliberate. The range is the recommended asking range where the calculation produced one, and the supported range otherwise, the same range the sentence about the list price uses, so the mark and the words always agree. The marker exists to inject reason where reason is needed — to help a prospect understand why their perception of the market needs adjusting. An identical marker on the low side would spend that attention on a case where nothing is wrong, and make the one that matters look ordinary.
Below the range, the document states the fact plainly — the vessel is well positioned for a timely sale at that figure — and stops. The display is the disclosure. Where a recommended asking range exists, the list price is measured against it, so a list price can be below the asking range while inside the supported range, or even above it; the document then says exactly that (“The list price sits within the supported range and below the recommended asking range”), so its words agree with the drawing above them.
The band runs green at the low end, through amber, to red at the high end. The ends are not symmetric for a seller: the low end sells faster, the high end may sit unsold. Position implies timing — it never predicts a number of days.
The worksheet’s conclusion is built around the same band: the range view draws it green at the low end through amber to red at the high end, marks the midpoint with its figure as the document’s band does, and marks the list price where one is entered (a list price far off the scale is pinned to the edge and says so). Where the calculation produced a recommended asking range, it is drawn too, as a labeled bracket under the band, in the document as on the worksheet. The ends carry their figures, labeled sells sooner and may sit longer as the document labels them, and a line beneath says what the width was measured from. Beneath the band is the Recommended asking range when the calculation produced one, or, when it could not, the document’s own sentence saying why, and then the document’s own sentence about the list price, which measures it against the recommended asking range where there is one. Only a list price the calculation finds above that range gets a warning, a red “!” beside that same sentence, and the red mark on the band; a list price within or below it gets the sentence with no warning and no red mark. A list price above the supported range but inside the asking range is not marked red, and the band says it sits above the supported range and within the recommended asking range. Every figure in it is the last calculation’s, and it never turns a position on the band into a number of days.
The charts are part of the analysis document itself: the convergence chart, the magnitude-of-adjustment chart, the depreciation curve, the asking-against-achieved chart, and the evidence-strength band. Each appears only where there is evidence to draw it from.
Your document opens with the range band pictured above, and leaves out the magnitude-of-adjustment chart, which is written for someone auditing the analysis. These charts are the part of your document that does the work. A seller who can see the subject sitting among the comparables argues less than one reading a paragraph about them.
What the colored strips on a comparable are telling you.
It is a prompt to look, not a verdict. Your two answers sit inside the notice itself: Exclude for this reason takes the sale out and writes the measurement into its reason box, and Keep as is leaves it retained and folds the notice to Reviewed · kept as is, with Undo beside it. Until you press one, nothing changes, and the decision stays yours.
When the divergent sale is the one carrying the least adjustment, no banner appears on that row. Instead a notice appears above the whole set.
A sale that diverges while making the fewest assumptions is evidence about the others, not about itself. The usual cause is several older sales being marked down heavily to reach a newer subject — and the remedy is the market-conditions entries for those years in Section 2, not deleting the recent sale.
The tool watches for the same sale entered twice. It is easy to do when comparables arrive from several sources, and damaging, because a duplicate quietly doubles the weight of one sale.
A flagged row gets a warning tagged Possible duplicate, Probable duplicate or Likely duplicate, naming the row it matches and what matched. The three tiers are how confident the match is, not how serious it is. The warning stays in view even when the sale is folded to its one-line summary, and it carries three buttons, in this order: Compare, Not duplicates and Remove.
Compare is not a click. Hold the mouse button down — or hold your finger on it, or hold Enter or Space with it focused — and a panel appears showing the two rows side by side for as long as you hold. Let go and it disappears.
It works that way on purpose: the matched row is often far up a long list, and this brings its values down to the flag without expanding anything or leaving a panel open. If you click it once and nothing happens, the control is not broken.
Not duplicates dismisses the match, for when two rows really are different sales that happen to look alike.
Remove on the warning deletes that sale, exactly as Remove does on a sale with no warning, with no need to open it first; while the warning is up it is that sale’s only Remove, open or shut. There is no undo, and a figure already calculated shows as out of date until you recalculate. Exclusion is for a real sale you have decided not to rely on, and it is disclosed by name in the finished document — which is right for an outlier and wrong for a row that should never have existed.
The export controls, each for a different job.
| Control | What you get |
|---|---|
| Copy Ledger | The adjustment table on its own. Each comparable's line carries its listing price beside its sale price where one was recorded, and a line gives the list-to-sold spread they average to, so a reader can reproduce the expected-sale deduction from the ledger alone. Every percentage on a comparable's line is followed by the dollars it moved the figure by, so the sale price and the steps add up to the comparable's figure exactly. Active listings reviewed for market context only are listed after the concluded figure, under their own heading, as not used in the calculation. It is written for a reader who was not there: the notes and warning marks the worksheet's ledger shows you stay on the worksheet, and what you typed is copied exactly as you typed it. Surveyor mode only. |
| Save to file | On the Worksheet strip at the top of the form, while you are signed out (see At the top of the worksheet), and on the save pill when a save fails. The whole worksheet — every entry, setting, reason and edited narrative — as a file in your downloads. Open file brings it back on any computer and recalculates it, saying whether it reached the same concluded value. Build a worksheet from listing data before a survey, save it, and open it afterward to adjust for what you found. |
| My valuations | Signed in, you do not need either file button: the worksheet is saved to your account as you work, and the finished document with it each time you calculate. The cards on My valuations give you the same file (Download file), the document as HTML or a PDF, and Open a file to bring a saved file in. See Signing in and My valuations. Your settings are kept with your account, so they are the same on any computer you sign in on; light or dark stays with each device. |
| Copy Narrative | The written analysis on its own. Surveyor mode only. |
| Edit | Beside Copy Narrative. Lets you reword the full and the concise statement in place; each keeps its own edits. What you write is what every copy, the document, Save as PDF and Send to my phone carry. The worksheet tags an edited statement “Edited by you” with a Restore original button, and notes, above and below the text with a few brief flashes to catch your eye, if your wording leaves out the concluded value in any place the original stated it. Neither appears in the document. Pressing Calculate or Recalculate asks first: recalculate and keep your wording, recalculate and replace your edits, or keep editing. Changing an entry fades the results until you recalculate; your edits are kept through it. Edits do not come across a switch of mode. Surveyor mode only. |
| Copy Full Statement | The value statement, long form. Surveyor mode only. |
| Copy Concise Statement | The value statement, short form. In one paragraph it says how the figure was built: what the value rests on, how the sales were adjusted for age, how the value basis was formed and with what weights, the condition, and what was reviewed but did not enter the calculation. Excluded sales are named with their reasons, as in the full statement. Surveyor mode only. |
| Download HTML | A self-contained file that opens in any browser. It does not expire. |
| Print / Save as PDF | A button at the top of the page that Open Analysis in New Tab opens. It raises your browser's own print dialog. On a phone, use the browser’s Share menu instead. |
| Save as PDF | A finished PDF, built for you and downloaded straight to your downloads folder. No print dialog, no destination to choose. If it cannot be built for any reason, the analysis opens in its own tab with the print dialog raised instead, and the line under the buttons tells you what happened and that the print dialog is the fallback. |
| Open Analysis in New Tab | The finished document on its own page, ready to print or save. |
| Send to my phone | A QR code and a temporary link. See below — it expires, and it has no password on it. |
Printed from the opened tab or from a downloaded file, every page carries the document’s name and “Page X of Y” at its foot. Chrome, Edge and Brave draw these. The prompts that invite you to add a logo and your firm’s details appear only on screen, and never print or export.
Each mode’s document has its own look. A surveyor’s is a refined classic: set in Spectral, a serif, with navy headings in small capitals marked by a short brass rule, tables ruled in navy, and the concluded figure framed like a certificate. A broker’s is a modern report: set in Inter, with a navy title band under your letterhead, numbered sections, figure cards edged in teal and navy table headings. Your firm’s name and logo stay at the top of both, on white. The look changes no word and no figure; every color in it is dark enough to read on paper, and it prints in black and white without losing anything.
The document carries the typefaces it names. Every copy that leaves the tool (a printed page, a downloaded file, a PDF, a phone link) has those font files inside it, so the running text and the title, the section labels, the tables and the figures in them, the captions under the photographs and the labels inside the charts read exactly as they do on screen, even on a computer that has none of those fonts installed. Only the fonts the document names are included, which keeps the file small.
Send to my phone puts a QR code on screen, along with the link behind it. Scan it with a phone camera and the finished document opens there. The QR code appears only on screen and never inside the document itself — a printed valuation carrying an expired QR code would be worse than one carrying none.
The link is temporary, and this is the part worth understanding before you rely on it. It is not the document; it points to a copy stored online. When it expires, anyone opening it sees a message saying so, not your analysis. Texting the link is therefore not the same as texting the file.
Once a link exists, a Link lasts picker appears underneath it: 1 hour (the default), 6 hours, 1 day, 2 days or 7 days. Changing it replaces the existing link and refreshes the QR code in place — you do not press the button again, and it does not make you recalculate the analysis.
Anyone holding it can read the vessel, every comparable, every price and your firm details, for as long as it lasts — including someone it was forwarded to, or anyone who picks up a phone it is sitting on. That is why the two longest options say so on screen, and why the default is the shortest.
If a client may take days over it, send them a downloaded file instead. Download HTML gives you a self-contained file that opens in any browser, never expires, and is not stored online waiting to be opened by whoever has the link.
VALUATION BREAKDOWN: 2009 Viking 52 Convertible, effective August 8, 2026 MARKET EVIDENCE Comparable 1: 2009 Viking 52 Convertible, Stuart, FL, USA. Listed $415,000; sold 04/11/2025 for $385,000 (7.2% below list). Age 16 at sale; subject 17 at the effective date. Age adjustment −3.60% (−$13,860): $371,140 Comparable 2: 2011 Viking 52 Convertible, Palm Beach, FL, USA. Listed $429,000; sold 08/02/2024 for $402,000 (6.3% below list). Age 13 at sale; subject 17 at the effective date. Age adjustment −11.00% (−$44,220): $357,780 Excluded: 2010 Viking 52 Convertible, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA. Sold $298,000; reason for exclusion: Distressed sale VALUATION Age normalization: Martin Scale (Recreational), published to 35 years Adjusted comparable average: $364,460 List-to-sold spread (observed, not applied): average −6.8%, range −7.2% to −6.3%, 2 of 2 sales Value basis (comparable sales): $364,460 Condition: above average, inclusive of equipment; adjustment +10%: +$36,446 Value after condition: $400,906 Rounded for reporting: $401,000 Concluded Market Value: $401,000
This is the part people get wrong. Copy the ledger and the narrative separately and paste each into its own place in the report — not the whole document in one block.
In InspectX specifically, both normally belong in the Summary section, under the Valuation Adjustments heading.
The tool explains itself. Here is where.
Scattered through the sections are small Why?, Hint, What these mean and How to use this buttons. Each opens the tool's own explanation of the control beside it. They are the fastest answer available, and once you notice one you start seeing them everywhere.
The worksheet carries a chat panel that answers questions about using the tool. Open it with the Ask Val button in the Calculate bar. It can see what you have entered, so it can tell you which comparable it is talking about and what a particular banner on your screen means. Before your first question it explains what will be sent to answer it, and nothing is sent until you agree.
It explains; it does not calculate. The worksheet owns every figure. If the two ever appear to disagree, the worksheet is right.
A long answer can reach its length limit and stop where it stands. When that happens the panel says so and offers a Continue the answer button, which asks Val to pick up exactly where she left off. It is a limit being reached, not the tool failing.
When Val suggests a better way of using the sheet, she may offer two buttons: Explain how and Do it for me. Explain comes first, and walks you through doing it yourself. Do it for me applies the change.
She may switch the depreciation scale, turn sale-date normalization on or off, move the review threshold, or turn rounding on or off. That is the whole list, and it is enforced by the page rather than by asking her nicely.
She may never write a price, a year, a sale date, a vessel name, a condition rating, a replacement cost, or whether anybody went aboard. She cannot know any of those, and a figure she invented has no place in a document you sign. If evidence needs changing she will tell you which field, and you type it.
Nothing happens until you press the button, the offer says exactly what will change before it changes, and afterward your results are marked out of date, so the figure changes only when you deliberately calculate again.
If you need evidence and do not have it:
Both need your own subscription and login. The tool does not fetch from either.
The honest ladder, strongest first:
It is a route to a better-supported one. The figure may well move down.
Use the Send feedback link at the foot of Val’s panel in the worksheet. A comment written there reaches the people who maintain the tool, and it is a real route to an answer rather than a brush-off. Signed in, the form neither asks for nor shows an email: the reply goes to the email on your account, and an optional box shares a copy of the worksheet (photos only if you tick Include photos) so the problem can be seen as you see it. Every setting that shapes the figure goes with it; your name, credentials, contact line and logo do not, and the copy’s header reads Preparer details withheld from shared copy in their place.
This guide describes a calculation aid. Its output is not an appraisal.
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