Sale & PurchaseS&P
The secondhand market for trading existing ships — and the desk that brokers those transactions.
Sale & Purchase (S&P) is the market for buying and selling secondhand vessels, as opposed to newbuilding (ordering ships from a yard) or demolition (selling for scrap). An S&P broker matches buyers and sellers and negotiates the memorandum of agreement.
Reported S&P sale prices, normalised per deadweight tonne by class and age, are the comparable data behind asset valuation. We use booked S&P transactions to drive our vessel valuation model and S&P benchmarks.
On TheMaritime
Also known as: S&P, sale and purchase, secondhand sale.
Related terms
Automated Valuation ModelAVM
A model that estimates a ship’s market value from recent sales of comparable vessels.
Demolition
Selling a ship at the end of her life for recycling, priced per light displacement tonne (LDT).
Newbuilding
A ship ordered new from a shipyard — and the forward orderbook of such vessels that signals future fleet supply.
Deadweight TonnageDWT
The total weight a ship can carry — cargo plus fuel, stores, crew and water — at her load line, in metric tonnes.
Plain-English reference definition — our own explanation of a standard shipping concept, not a licensed source or legal advice. See the full glossary or the broader maritime dictionary.
Last reviewed: June 2026.