All 10 boats sold in Essex Boatyards’ online auction, held earlier this afternoon.

Company director James Barke is ‘ecstatic’ and has already lined up another auction for late July.

“It’s the modern way of buying,” he told MBY minutes after the auction finished at 2.30pm.

All 10 boats, ranging from a Williams jet RIB to a Trader 595, exceeded their reserve price.

In all there were 148 bidders, of which 35 to 40 were very active.

Bids came in from across the British Isles, as well as Malta and Scandinavia.

A Swedish punter who had been under the impression it was a stand-up auction turned up in person.

“We gave him a computer in the office to bid on,” says James.

The Fairline Targa 28 had the most interest, with 130 bids. It sold for £29,000.

The next most popular was a Doral 250SE, build year 2000, which fetched £16,180.

The Trader 595 (interior pictured) was sold for £120,000.

The Williams jet RIB went for £1,020, just £20 above its reserve.

James says: “We are over the moon. We thought if we sold half of them we’d be happy. Our digital people Wax Digital, who do these in other industries, said normally a successful auction is 20% sold.

“We’ve had 100% sold.

“The advantage for the bidders is they are buying the boat at true market value.”

Essex Boatyards offered surveys up front on all boats in the auction, each downloadable from their website for £40. Essex say they made a loss on the surveys but in all consider it a job well done.

Watch out on www.essexboatyards.com for the next online auction in late July.

There is also a forum thread running about this on the YBW forums .

And look out for a full feature in MBY August on online auctions.