Annual cost of our hobby.

Away from the Solent you can run a deep keeled 30 foot boat for around £2500 if you can find a modest swinging moooring. This rises to over 3k if you have regular upgrades of kit and well over 4k if you are lavish with it. You could probably use the same figures for the Solent, if you could take the ground. These are rough and ready fixed costs.

As already pointed out, this does not include depreciation, or any capital growth you might have lost on your initial outlay.
 
The simple answer is that it costs slightly more than you can afford, regardless of actual budget. There is always something that needs upgrading, replacing or fixing and there is always (for most poeple anyway) a budget limit.

It all depends on how perfect and convenient everything has to be, and that's more a function of the individual than the boat.

I'd take the lowest sum posted and the highest sum posted and make the assumption that the true cost will lie somewhere in between.

The most important factor is to be honest with yourself about your budget and your expectations. For a 32ft boat I would need about 5K to be happy - it can be done for a lot less and it can be done for a lot more.

Cut your cloth according to your means, and you can have great fun on any budget - and once out on the water money just doesn't matter anyway.
 
My view is around £2500 and I reckon this is middle of the Road excluding replacement of Engine.
Mooring / Layup £1400 ( Chichester Harbour on a club mooring)
Fuel £150
Insurance £250
Antifoul £100
Other stuff, sail sinking fund, gadget etc. £600
Try to do as much as is sensible myself.
 
For me - with a early 80s 32 footer I am budgeting £2500 pa. So far keeping reasonably to that. About 400 of that is mooring/layup (club costs, laying own mooring/est 10 year life span), 220 insurance, 100 fuel. The remainder is 'making improvements' - although we are fortunate that some of that cost will be recouped.

But the way I see it - for the whole family to have a reasonable amount of 'fun together' that is not bad. And as a comparison, my son (13) is now mad on snowboarding. Cost to him - 0, cost to me - about £2500 (excluding any foreign trips)! Nothing is cheap these days. Probably never was either!
 
josephmoore said:
Any more and I know I'd start feeling I had to use it more to 'get my moneys worth'.
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That is an issue. Mine costs me about £5k to £6k ignoring depreciation for a 35 footer with both a marina home berth anbd a swinger in Falmouth for the summer. I do feel a little pressure to use it and its getting to the point where its taking up too much of my time. I am thinking of downsizing to something where I wont feel guilty if I just leave it on its mooring all year. In which case |I will probably use it a lot more!

In any case I fancy a bit of club motor racing and as far as I can see the bottom end of that sport has much the same price tag. So downsize the boat and buy myself a caterham or a radical .
 
Mavanier said:
I'm amazed how much some people are paying for insurance.
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Guess it is proportional to the size and value of the boat - I'm paying a good £400pa insurance on a car that is worth £3000-£4000 - on that basis my £900 insurance on my current boat is extremely good value!
 
We reckon £11k p.a for a 36footer. Historically we had a 29 which was about £6- £7k. But that's walk ashore in the Solent.

The 10% p.a. Is IMHO a load of rubbish. Maybe 10% plus the cost of mooring might be closer.
 
jac said:
We reckon £11k p.a for a 36footer. Historically we had a 29 which was about £6- £7k. But that's walk ashore in the Solent.

The 10% p.a. Is IMHO a load of rubbish. Maybe 10% plus the cost of mooring might be closer.
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A lot of that is down to location - we pay less than £4kpa for an MDL berth in the Medway and would be paying close to £10k for the same boat on the Hamble. Quoting other expenses as a percentage of price just doesn't make sense - a forty foot Jeanneau probably costs about half the price of a forty foot Najad, but the running costs will be similar.
 
Deep Mooring plus lift in, out and winter storage for a 31ft in Southampton: £800
Insurance £270
Diesel: £30
Antifouling:£70
Average annual Maintenance: £400

Total : £1570 No bad at all
 
Well, we seem to have established that the answer is possibly along the general lines of "how much would you like to pay?", and also that quite a few of us are reluctant to consider all aspects of the cost. For instance, a few of the above posts do, but more don't, consider the question of "loss of interest on capital", that is, the £kx you paid for the boat now isn't earning interest. Thus, if the boat cost (say) £50,000 and you could have got 5% interest on that £50,000, you have essentially lost £ 2,500 annually. The 10% quoted in a previous post may be a bit optimistic (or perhaps we would like to see a bank account giving that much interest) but is maybe about right if you had to borrow the money.

Another cost - travel - if you have a round trip of 100 miles to get to the boat and back, and you reckon 30p/mile, that's £30 just to visit the boat, if you visit 20 times annually, that's £600 / year.

And if you had to sell the boat - could you get back what you think it is worth? if you economise on new kit and maintenance, perhaps not.

On the other hand. 4 of us had a 10-day holiday which included visiting France; total cost for all of us (not counting food, which we would have had to buy anyway, and incidentals) - fuel, berthing, etc - was under £100. How much would such a holiday have cost 4 people had we not had a boat? quite a lot I suspect, so we can put something on the credit side. How much does it really, really cost to run a motor caravan (or even a towed one, plus the car big enough to tow it)? how much to go on a cruise? what's the real cost of a time share? maybe the boat isn't so expensive after all, at least by comparison.
 
There is the other part of the equation, the hours accrued aboard each year-hopefully thoroughly enjoyable too.

Nice thought it is to 'own'a boat and to 'think' about it through the year, time out on the water, IME makes it stsrt to seem eminently sensible, the boat gets tweaked to a higher state.
if like me, you elect to use it as a base for several months of the year too, then the galley becomes a veritable powerhouse of delights, it is no longer a weekend shed, the comforts of home accrue without the acres of vacuuming, heating, electrical consumption, bath running...and no lawn to mow. What price that eh on a sunny breeze of a day?
So, any figure you like.
To me, 15% of the purchase price, set aside, to cover the biggies, a new boom, mast, engine, gearbox, whatever.... works ( hey could even be earning ooo 0.5% without having to work it every day too). But I am out of the depreciation game and have been lucky enough to be able to take advantage of advance mooring negotiations and offers too.
 
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1977 32ft twin-keel sailboat - East of Scotland.

Insurance £300
Drying mooring, crane out/in, winter hard standing £300
Maintenance & upgrades £500 minimum based on reasonably sorted boat (excludes big replacements)
Diesel £50 max
Harbour dues per night £10-£20 depending on venue
Gas £25
Food & drinks (not an on-cost, as would be doing this anyway)

So roughly £125 / month (not much more than one night in a hotel, a curry down the local restaurant, or a lively night in the pub). An absolute bargain for the pleasure, lifestyle, and circle of friends ...that lasts all year round not just during the season or the days out on the water. The trick is to buy a boat with sound basics such as a replacement engine, and sails etc so that you're not faced with the biggest bills from day one.

While many above are talking about losses on (capital expenditure) interest etc, keep in mind that there is no residual value on Sky TV, an overnight at a hotel, or indeed a holiday. A boat is an investment in your quality of life, that retains some level of value when you're done.

Oh, and don't forget the priceless (and yet practical) joy of giving your loved-one fenders for her (or his) birthday. It's a whole new rich vein of gift ideas for the woman who already has enough Chanel No 5 to last a lifetime.
 
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Our boat costs less to run, than we would spend on fags if SWMBO and I both smoked 20 a day (about £5k pa at £7 per pack). That is my response when people acuse us of being rich as we have a yacht. That's a semi tidal marina £2.5 k, insurance, £200, lift out £400, fuel £150, maintenance and upgrades the rest. I have ignored the cost of buying the boat in the first place though.
 
All in inc West country Marina berth about 8-10k for a 36ftr depending on what we buy for it. That excludes depreciation which would multply the figure horribly as we bought her from new 18 months ago.
 
blackbeard said:
Well, we seem to have established that the answer is possibly along the general lines of "how much would you like to pay?", and also that quite a few of us are reluctant to consider all aspects of the cost. For instance, a few of the above posts do, but more don't, consider the question of "loss of interest on capital", that is, the £kx you paid for the boat now isn't earning interest. Thus, if the boat cost (say) £50,000 and you could have got 5% interest on that £50,000, you have essentially lost £ 2,500 annually. The 10% quoted in a previous post may be a bit optimistic (or perhaps we would like to see a bank account giving that much interest) but is maybe about right if you had to borrow the money.

Another cost - travel - if you have a round trip of 100 miles to get to the boat and back, and you reckon 30p/mile, that's £30 just to visit the boat, if you visit 20 times annually, that's £600 / year.

And if you had to sell the boat - could you get back what you think it is worth? if you economise on new kit and maintenance, perhaps not.

On the other hand. 4 of us had a 10-day holiday which included visiting France; total cost for all of us (not counting food, which we would have had to buy anyway, and incidentals) - fuel, berthing, etc - was under £100. How much would such a holiday have cost 4 people had we not had a boat? quite a lot I suspect, so we can put something on the credit side. How much does it really, really cost to run a motor caravan (or even a towed one, plus the car big enough to tow it)? how much to go on a cruise? what's the real cost of a time share? maybe the boat isn't so expensive after all, at least by comparison.
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Sure but all this becomes an exercise playing with numbers - fine if you are a cost accountant at work, but a bit tedious if you arent. The real issue is can you afford it? Is the average bank balance trending down or up? And if you can afford it and you are interested in sailing, then why not?

I like to think there is a balance in my life. I've had my years of sacrifice and accumulating money and my wife is well provided for. I am transferring money to the kids to avoid IHT and the government pi55ing my hard earned up against the wall. But I'm keeping a bit back for myself to pay for the bikes, cars and boat in my retirement. So provided I can afford to do everything I want to do, I really do not care about such concepts as interest forgone or whether I ( the kids really) will get back what I paid for the boat when I sell it. Its unlikely anyway.
 
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