Jongert's La Joie de Mer Sells After a 37pc, Two-Year Price Cut

When and how did La Joie de Mer sell?

La Joie de Mer sold on 2 September 2026, with Ann Avery of Northrop and Johnson representing the seller and Dennis Frederiksen of Fraser Yachts Monaco representing the buyer, closing a listing that had run continuously since at least mid-2024.

Fraser announced the sale on its own news page the same day, naming Frederiksen as the buyer's broker without disclosing a sale price, buyer identity or delivery location. Northrop and Johnson, which had carried the listing under Avery since at least 2024, has not published a closing announcement of its own as of this writing. The two-broker structure, a co-brokered deal between a US-based agency and Fraser's Monaco office, is standard practice for a yacht that had spent real time on the open market and drawn interest from both sides of the Atlantic.

The yacht was most recently marketed out of Newport, Rhode Island, having previously been photographed and listed out of St Maarten and the wider Caribbean during the 2024-2025 winter season. Neither broker's announcement states where the change of hands took place or where the yacht is headed next, which is ordinary for a private sale of this size: the buyer's identity and the yacht's future cruising ground are rarely part of a sold notice.

What makes La Joie de Mer a genuine performance sailing yacht?

La Joie de Mer is a 29-metre (95ft 2in) aluminium sloop built by the Dutch yard Jongert in 2005 to a design by naval architect Tony Castro, conceived for an owner who wanted genuine speed alongside long-range cruising comfort.

Jongert, founded in 1953 and now part of the VeKa Group, has built more than 325 sailing yachts across Performance, Cruising and Special lines; La Joie de Mer sits at the performance end, with a sleeker, more contemporary hull than the yard's earlier, more traditional models. Castro's hull was further sharpened with a custom keel optimisation carried out in 2008 and again in 2011, work Northrop and Johnson credits with meaningfully improving both speed and handling, and BOAT International's own November 2025 roundup of regatta-ready sailing superyachts named her as well suited to Corinthian racing on the strength of it.

The sailing package matches the ambition: a custom carbon Hall Spars mast, a Park Avenue boom, rod rigging, Harken winches and North 3Di sails, built to perform rather than simply to cruise. On deck, recessed hardware, flush hatches and a submarine anchor system keep the working deck clear, and a dedicated tender garage means no davit or chocks clutter the foredeck, a detail that matters as much for racing as for a clean look at anchor. The upper saloon's glass panels can also be raised electrically at the push of a button, closing the deck saloon off from bad weather without leaving the helm, a feature from the same generation of Jongert Performance-line design as the keel work itself.

How far did the asking price fall before she sold?

Northrop and Johnson's own listing notices trace the asking price from around $3.19m in mid-2024 down to $1,995,000 by late 2025, a reduction of roughly 37 percent that then held for at least the final ten months on the market.

On 18 June 2024, N&J announced a $500,000 cut to $2,690,000. On 23 January 2025, a further $390,000 came off, to $2,350,000. By the time BOAT International profiled her on 18 November 2025, the asking price stood at $1,995,000, and SuperYacht Times' partner coverage of 13 April 2026 confirmed the same figure was still current five months later. Neither broker has published the price at which she actually sold on 2 September 2026.

A price run like this is not unusual for a 20-year-old performance sailing yacht in the 25 to 35-metre bracket, where new-build alternatives compete for the same buyer's attention and a used boat has to earn its price against them. What is unusual is the duration: more than two years of public repricing on a single listing, spanning two different brokers' notices, is a longer public sale than most yachts this size carry before either selling or being withdrawn. SuperYacht Times separately frames her racing brief more narrowly, built with an eye on Corinthian and Bucket-style regattas specifically rather than offshore racing in general, a distinction BOAT International's broader 'regatta-ready' framing does not draw.

What condition is the yacht in, and what is left undisclosed?

The hull and superstructure were repainted in 2022 and the rig had its five-year survey and service completed in 2023, work both Northrop and Johnson's listing and SuperYacht Times' partner piece cite as putting the yacht in turnkey, ready-to-sail condition.

Below deck, the interior keeps Jongert's teak craftsmanship but in a deliberately restrained register, free of the heavier inlay work on earlier Jongert models, arranged around a full-beam lower saloon with a large overhead skylight and an interior helm and navigation station for all-weather use. She sleeps guests across three cabins including a queen-bed master with its own separate head, and carries an auxiliary 316hp Scania diesel for a cruising speed of roughly 9.5 knots under power. The aft cockpit carries two dining tables that fold down to coffee-table height, and Northrop and Johnson's listing states the yacht is offered with US duty already paid, a detail that matters specifically to an American buyer, since it removes one further cost and one further delay from a purchase.

What neither listing publishes is any independent survey, sea trial or condition report carried out on behalf of a buyer rather than the seller: every specification, from the keel work to the 2022 repaint, is sourced to the yard's history and the selling broker's own account. That is standard for a private yacht sale, independent pre-purchase surveys exist but are rarely made public, and it means a buyer evaluating a similar boat should expect to commission their own survey rather than rely on listing copy, however detailed.

What does this sale mean for an owner comparing an older performance sailing yacht against a new build?

La Joie de Mer's sale is a useful data point for any owner weighing a pedigreed but 20-year-old performance sailing yacht against a new-build alternative: real racing credentials and recent refit work did not stop the asking price falling 37 percent over two years before a buyer committed.

For an owner selling a comparable yacht, the lesson is pricing discipline: N&J's series of public cuts, each documented and dated, likely did more to eventually clear the boat than any single piece of marketing copy, and a seller unwilling to reprice on a similar timeline should expect a similarly long listing. For a buyer, the lesson is that a Corinthian-race-capable, recently refitted Jongert with real naval-architecture pedigree can now be had for under $2 million before negotiation, a fraction of what a comparable new-build performance sloop from a current yard would cost, at the price of a hull now two decades old and a level of disclosure that stops well short of an independent survey.

Neither broker's sale announcement states whether the buyer intends to race, cruise or simply own La Joie de Mer as a classic, but the two-year price history now on the public record, across three independent sources, is itself the kind of information this desk exists to assemble: the figures a buyer would otherwise have had to piece together from three separate broker notices over two years, gathered in one place.

How does buying La Joie de Mer used compare with commissioning a new Jongert?

Jongert, now part of the VeKa Group, builds its current Performance Line only in 39, 42 and 50 metre semi-custom sizes from three 60-metre sheds in Wieringermeer, the Netherlands, so a buyer wanting a smaller 29-metre performance sloop like La Joie de Mer has no direct new-build equivalent from the yard at all.

That gap is itself part of what this sale is worth knowing: Jongert stopped building at the 29-metre scale years ago, and its current Performance Line starts at 39 metres, a jump that also means a materially larger crew, berth and running-cost commitment. A buyer set on a Jongert-built performance sloop under 30 metres is shopping the used market by necessity, not preference, which is part of why a documented, three-source price history like this one is unusually useful: there is no new-build list price to compare it against.

The yard itself remains active at the larger end: three construction sheds at up to 60 metres, extendable to 100 metres, sit behind the Performance, Cruising and Special lines it still markets today. For an owner who outgrows a boat La Joie de Mer's size, that is the direction Jongert now builds in; for an owner who wants exactly her size and character, a resale like this one, and the next one to come to market, is the only route in.