Advice on Buying a liveaboard MY that I can get Coded

[BruceK]

An interesting set of replies

No we haven't had a boat before but repairing houses and cars has been a theme for a long time.

........................... fine

You have no idea and thats great because only a masochist gets into boating and buys an old boat because they think its cheap. My story all over and loving every moment of it but I can assure hand on heart that there is no such thing as a cheap boat. They all cost the exact same in the end. Buy new, get 10 to 20 years advance benefit on maintenance costs. By old and cheap and do the back pay on the the previous owner(s) maintenance advance. You cant win. Buying an old boat will almost certainly cost you more that a 10-20 year old boat over the next 5 years. My biggest fear when buying was could I afford that much diesel. Oh how I laugh in hindsight. Old boats just bleed money like crazy and I too do everything myself. Sometimes that curbs costs. Sometimes it makes it more expensive. Do I regret boating, not a chance. Do I regret buying an old boat. Wouldnt have got into the hobby if I didn't. Would I buy another old boat. Absolutely. But I wouldnt be buying it because I thought it would be cheaper.

 

[jrudge]

To give you some idea I have a squadron 58. I do most of my own maintainence Except taking engines to bits. My costs are ball park £40k £45k per annum. Mooring, insurance , servicing , repairs ( but not refit - I have spend £40k l in the past 2 years on that in addition ) and modest diesel use ( 8 thousand litres a year ish ). The sole variable I can really control is mooring cost. That is e25K of the bill. The rest is what it is. But it has to moor somewhere and I like nice places.

1100 a month all in for an older boat. I can’t see it and you won’t want to be in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Portofino]

I’d say a boat that size and age to live aboard needs £3 K pcm inc repairs , fuel for travel insurance, berths , contingency fund , hire cars , taxis , flights back + transport at the other end , it’s annual haul out , antifoul + anodes =£2400 for lift + blocking off for 1 week + paint + parts assuming DIY so near £200 pcm .
Depends where and how far you want to travel .
Average Cote d Azur berth approx £20 K plus some service charge .
maybe £ 15 K in Italy + winter leccy + water metered another £1 K .

You can’t really anchor off , or let me reword that ......insurance ( sensible premium) requires a “ home port “ .
Thats different to a summer jaunt AND anchoring off as part of the trip in there claims refuting eyes .
They will expect it “ home ported “ in the winter .

Even the sleekest and chicest marinas are god forsaken places in the winter ........everything closed .
A few all seasons places like Antibes are at the top of the price scale .
Bottom of scale are 8hit holes imagine say spending 4/5 months stuck in Essex in Jaywick if it had a marina .......then not being able to speak the lingo .

What a lot do is buy a sail boat , and “ live “ aboard in the summer in Greece as it’s cheap and you can actually anchor off a lot .
Come winter haul it out , place it on the hard and rtn to the U.K. .
Sumner could be 7 months , winter 5 or what ever ,
Theres just a few 100 fuel as opposed to thousands and the buy in is 1/2 as much for the same L .One small engine .......all adds up .
Keep a U.K. bricks n mortar base .
Try that 1 st .
plenty of fun still fixing things and a bit more cerebral moving about .

 

[PlanB]

David, if we can't pm/converse, do you have an e-mail address or phone you'd be prepared to post on here? Especially in the light of some of the responses on here, I think I could be helpful.

 

[jrudge]

I would not publish person info on here - it leads to spam etc.

But it is also a forum. You are 100% free to disagree with any view and if you have a point of view it would be nicer to keep it public. People ( including me) who are boat owners are all saying that boats sink cash. Alternative views I can gtee will be met with interest

 

[petem]

I would not publish person info on here - it leads to spam etc.

But it is also a forum. You are 100% free to disagree with any view and if you have a point of view it would be nicer to keep it public. People ( including me) who are boat owners are all saying that boats sink cash. Alternative views I can gtee will be met with interest

To do what the OP needs to do you need three things:

1) A cheap place to moor it. Torrevieja is cheap as is Sant Carles (note that paces are cheap for a reason).
2) Advanced 'man skills' / DIY (plumbing, electrical, mechanical, carpentry, etc).
3) Lots of luck (that you don't get a catastrophic engine failure).

Speaking the local lingo would be a benefit too.

 

[davidpallett]

PlanB - use dvs89@gmx.com

 

[davidpallett]

I was intending to be the eastern end of the Med - Greece, Croatia etc

Upcoming Brexit may bring the Schengen 90 day rule in as well so that has to be reckoned on as well so overwintering in Spain may not be an viable option - this is all up for grabs with Boris

Being a liveaboard I would not be returning to the UK - I have no reason to - no family ties here. Wife's children would come to us as they are in their 30s. They are not local to us in the UK anyway

I am struggling to see the difference between being at home on a boat either anchored off or in a deserted marina in the winter as opposed to being in the house at Farnborough in the winter. I speak some french, some german so learning a bit of Greek or similar cant be rocket science

On the finance side yes I have significant contingency for the unexpected engine failure and buying an older boat is not about 'cheap' its about value for money. If its been looked after maintenance wise then having owned a VW garage I can tell you that even a good car engine can fail after 5 years or will go on for 20yrs if correctly maintained and used. Pipes and things corrode at a set rate so if you expect certain things to fail and be replaced as they start to look dodgy and dont run things at max then they last.

 

[BruceK]

............
On the finance side yes I have significant contingency for the unexpected engine failure and buying an older boat is not about 'cheap' its about value for money. If its been looked after maintenance wise then having owned a VW garage I can tell you that even a good car engine can fail after 5 years or will go on for 20yrs if correctly maintained and used. Pipes and things corrode at a set rate so if you expect certain things to fail and be replaced as they start to look dodgy and dont run things at max then they last.

We're going to put this one in the memory locker for future jest and mickey taking. But otherwise you have a great plan in taking up boating. And dont forget this isn't a 20 year old VW, it's an approaching 40 year old boat. Would you invest your retirement into a 40 year old HGV that's been parked on the beach all it's life? Mines only 27 years old and she bleeds money quicker than a sailor on shore-leave.
chin chin and best of luck.

 

[James L]

To give you some idea I have a squadron 58. I do most of my own maintainence Except taking engines to bits. My costs are ball park £40k £45k per annum. Mooring, insurance , servicing , repairs ( but not refit - I have spend £40k l in the past 2 years on that in addition ) and modest diesel use ( 8 thousand litres a year ish ). The sole variable I can really control is mooring cost. That is e25K of the bill. The rest is what it is. But it has to moor somewhere and I like nice places.

1100 a month all in for an older boat. I can’t see it and you won’t want to be in the middle of nowhere.

25k for Mooring and roughly 10k on Fuel - leaves you spending 5-10k on Insurance, Servicing, Repairs etc which isn't too bad considering

The basic mechanics have to be looked after, from then on you have some degree of flexibility, do you use a marine fridge or a domestic one and an inverter like I do. Do you want an electric toilet, what electronics do you really need etc etc. Some of this will depend on what the boat came with etc, but we all seem to liek improving stuff so it's very difficult to always go for the cheapest option. You really do need that 12 inch touch screen plotter

But spending your life savings on a big boat to live on in the med is really a huge jump into the unknown without much of a safety net. One blown engine you can't afford to fix and it's worthless.
Why not buy a smaller old boat now and keep it on a swinging moorning in the UK, spend as much time as you want on it and see if you like the lifestyle, get an idea of how much it really costs you and give yourself time to find out about mooring fees etc before commiting to a big boat in the med where you'll need an expensive berth.
Then if you love it sell the small boat and upgrade.

 

[James L]

25k for Mooring and roughly 10k on Fuel - leaves you spending 5-10k on Insurance, Servicing, Repairs etc which isn't too bad considering

The basic mechanics have to be looked after, from then on you have some degree of flexibility, do you use a marine fridge or a domestic one and an inverter like I do. Do you want an electric toilet, what electronics do you really need etc etc. Some of this will depend on what the boat came with etc, but we all seem to liek improving stuff so it's very difficult to always go for the cheapest option. You really do need that 12 inch touch screen plotter

But spending your life savings on a big boat to live on in the med is really a huge jump into the unknown without much of a safety net. One blown engine you can't afford to fix and it's worthless.
Why not buy a smaller old boat now and keep it on a swinging moorning in the UK, spend as much time as you want on it and see if you like the lifestyle, get an idea of how much it really costs you and give yourself time to find out about mooring fees etc before commiting to a big boat in the med where you'll need an expensive berth.
Then if you love it sell the small boat and upgrade.

And just to give the other side of the cost scale, I have a 35' 1990 Sunseeker.
I pay 1k per year in winter storage.
About 1k in servicing, antifoul etc.
1.5k in diesel
Maybe another 500 in repairs.
and 2-3k in improvements most years.
My swinging mooring is free except for €50 in yearly checks.

Of course if I was paying 10-15k in marina fees I would want a newer boat in better condition with a lot more luxuries and my costs would go up exponentially.

 

[jrudge]

25k for Mooring and roughly 10k on Fuel - leaves you spending 5-10k on Insurance, Servicing, Repairs etc which isn't too bad considering

The basic mechanics have to be looked after, from then on you have some degree of flexibility, do you use a marine fridge or a domestic one and an inverter like I do. Do you want an electric toilet, what electronics do you really need etc etc. Some of this will depend on what the boat came with etc, but we all seem to liek improving stuff so it's very difficult to always go for the cheapest option. You really do need that 12 inch touch screen plotter

But spending your life savings on a big boat to live on in the med is really a huge jump into the unknown without much of a safety net. One blown engine you can't afford to fix and it's worthless.
Why not buy a smaller old boat now and keep it on a swinging moorning in the UK, spend as much time as you want on it and see if you like the lifestyle, get an idea of how much it really costs you and give yourself time to find out about mooring fees etc before commiting to a big boat in the med where you'll need an expensive berth.
Then if you love it sell the small boat and upgrade.

The balance has to cover
- insurance
- servicing
- lift and antifoul ( which in the med is daft)
- sundry repairs and replacements ( outside of refit items)
- polishing ( in the sun I get someone else to do it )
- a month of Crew in the summer ( E2,5k)

There is a bit more left in the pot as the berth and fuel are in Euro but of course it all adds up. On top are flights and car hire etc.

Above the OP asked how different can it be living in a quiet marina as opposed to a house. Tricky to know where to begin. Local to your house you have friends, probably a car, you speak the language. Marina towns are pretty empty and bleak in winter, and sitting at anchor in the howling wind - even most of the sail boat liveabord don't do that.

Your mind seem set so good luck and let us knowhow you get on