Cheapest and most cost-efficient UK boat-ownership

Greenheart

Greenheart

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Just idly wondering how necessarily expensive sailing is. Or, should I say boat-owning? I don't have an engine, and I can live without the cost of fuel & maintenance.

I don't know what's the cheapest age of boat-ownership...when is a boat new enough not to show expensive problems, but old enough to have depreciated significantly?

If the cheapest sailing is a damage-proof 10 y/o plastic dinghy which loses no value in another 5 years and is stored in a drive or alleyway...and if the costliest is a new Scandinavian fifty-footer with full luxury options, berthed in a Hamble marina and used two weeks per year...is there a particular route to follow, to find value?

I suppose anything which dries out upright on a remote muddy mooring, represents a big saving; so inherent design-solidity and bilge keels are a good bet.

I'd think owners of boats with reliable heaters enjoy much longer seasons afloat...need they ever haul out? More time per year aboard, makes each hour cheaper...

But when does decrepitude on a boat reduce the time spent using, rather than repairing her? Plenty of very cheap boats, but are they all to some extent "projects"?

I'd be fascinated to draw-up a 5-point 'features-guide', based on expenses that forumites regret paying for, versus features they regard as having saved money.

Any thoughts? Thanks. :)
 
Number one way to cheap boating is to live somewhere where not many other people sail. Cheap or free mooring, both for home berth and when visiting other ports.

Pete
 
Most jobs can be DIY provided you are not completely stupid and have the time, so the most expensive items are storage and insurance. Between those two, we pay well on the way to £5k per year - could easily be twice that if we were on the Hamble! Storage costs are proportional to size so to minimise them, go for a smaller boat! Alternatively, go for a trailer-sailer and park it in the garden - there are some nice things around plenty big enough for a youngster like you that can be hauled out with a medium size car and it has the advantage that you will get to see more exotic sailing grounds - it takes ages for us to sail ours to the Med whereas you could have your trailerable 20-footer down there in a couple of days!

Definitely get a heater - most of us spend up close to our limit on our boats (whatever the actual figure is), so you want to ba able to enjoy it all the year round. Steer clear of wood - when they get decrepit, they sink. Plastic can look terrible, but still float - and even the worst GRP will respond well to a lick of epoxy and a good polish!
 
31 ft moody, maintenance done myself maybe a a couple of hundred quid a year on antifoul and new toys. Mooring £0 a year and winter storage a whopping £9. Every 10-15 years new sails and rigging. Diesel virtually none it's a sail boat. Amount of use loads it's 2 mins from my house.
Would struggle to justify it to my family if it cost any more as it's low on family prioritys list. Not my list though!
 
I would echo the other advice other than the steer clear of wood. Nobody seems to want wood and so you can get an excellent boat for next to or including nothing. Wood is easy and cheap to repair if you are handy. Many old wooden boats are simply waitinf for Godot and it would be quite possible to scavange off one to restore another. Then you need to get her up to scratch which will take a bit of time and effort but only a few hundred quid if you are really scrimping and saving. Getting her in the water, depends on if she came with a trailor. Mine did and a neighbour did the deed with his tractor for free. Mast has been steped and unsteped by local fish farm for free, we did give them a cake. You can get by with very little diesel even if cruising extensively. We use the motor more than we should but still only use about 100L a year including heating. Could easily reduce that to 20L. Mooring is a matter of getting the right spot. If you are able to put down your own then it is simply the price of some heavy scrap and chain. Mooring buoys are often available for free from beaches around the country after storms. If you aren't interested in racing then sails can stay for decades even though they will look tired and baggy. If you have an iphone already then that doubles as a chartplotter and some ancient paper charts sell on ebay for very little. You can update them yourself. A few ropes cost next to nothing especially if you buy tail ends. We got good dacron or whatever that new fangled stuff is called ?spektra for very little this way. £10 in lamp oil, £20 in gas, £100 in antifoul which you can probably get end of tins for nothing.

It all adds up but it depends what is more important, time or money. Mostly money buys your own time and many people spend large sums to get jobs done by others. If you put the time in scrimping and checking out skips at boatyards you should do ok.
 
Presumably Charles Stock is our guiding light.

Alternatively: if we want to go sailing as opposed to owning a boat; most sailing clubs seem to have a lot of blokes who want to go sailing but need, or would like, a crew! When you can find one who is a reasonable human being and can sail and isn't accident prone, and has a decent boat, remember to buy, from time to time, a meal for the owner.

Another idea; join a club which runs a boat or boats. Much cheaper than owning your own boat.
 
A club near me has membersht £28 and moorings at £2per foot per annum. Another club has lots of old british grp boats lying unused and neglected which would likel yield one foc.
 
I really would't worry about fuel costs

I hazard a guess that 99% of sailors spend more on fuel getting to their boats than they do afloat.

Stinkpots excepted - I am staggered every time I go on the mobo forum to discover how much they spend
 
I reckon the Cheapest and most cost-efficient UK boat-ownership is similar to the cheapest and most cost-efficient UK car ownership. If you need a car or boat for work then that will greatly influence choice. Otherwise it's down to personal preferences and financial constraints. There are far too many variables for one answer to be valid for most people.

davidej said:
I hazard a guess that 99% of sailors spend more on fuel getting to their boats than they do afloat.
Click to expand...

We use a boat for coastal cruising and as a weekend base. Our mileage is small, perhaps 1000NM per year. At a rough guess the engine is in use for threequarters of the time and there's sail(s) up about two thirds of the time. The sails and engine are the two means of propulsion. From what I see there are many more than 1% of sailors using a fair bit of fuel.

Our cruising displacement is approximately 8 tons. We typically use one third of a litre of diesel per mile so our annual consumption is about 250 litres. As we only use road diesel that's a cost of about £350pa, less than 10% of our overall running costs.

Incidentally, the cheapest of something and the most cost-efficient are likely to be quite different.
 
Thanks to all for replying. I certainly recognise that there's no point expecting to profit from sailing for pleasure. I'm just interested in whether the forum's varied and disparate membership concur on particular aspects of design, equipment, location and any other aspects of the pursuit, which time has proven to be less costly than the alternative...like bilge keels being cheaper to park than a fin keel.

I wonder if, anywhere, a fold-down mast enables access to cheaper moorings, up-river of a bridge? That sort of thing. :)
 
So many variables but the one that is hardest to quantify until after you have owned it for a few years is just how much use you will get from the boat. Now you can buy a bigger boat and perhaps get more use in hours from it being more comfortable but of course total cost is much more. A smaller boat with less costs might get a lot of use or might be so small as to put you off using it unless weather is perfect. But then a small boat not used is less waste than a big boat not used.
Certainly I think a small boat but big enough to camp in and shelter in if weather is less than ideal might be a good start. good luck olewill
 
The type of boat will influence the costs of boat owning, the type of owner will influence the benefits.

It's sad I know but I got pleasure thinking about the boat even when she was on the mooring and I was at work...
 
TC Tuckton said:
The type of boat will influence the costs of boat owning, the type of owner will influence the benefits.

It's sad I know but I got pleasure thinking about the boat even when she was on the mooring and I was at work...
Click to expand...

Not sad at all - the screen backdrop on my PC is a picture of our boat - I see it many times each day and get pleasure from it each time.
 
I may have to rent a boat for a May-Day outing. Now, that's starting to get expensive...I pay to keep an unready boat in a club, but if I actually want to go sailing, I hire... :rolleyes:
 
The happiest boat owner is the one who doesn't stop to add up all the costs.

Can you not get the Osprey bodged up sufficiently for a quick bank holiday spin?
 
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