Cost of boating in UK

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nmunnery

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I have just completed reading the Marina Price Guide PBO Feb. 2009. As a resident of Ontario Canada for the past 20 years, I could not but be very depressed by what I read. It seems that little has changed in the years I have been away from England and that sailing is still the preserve of the ‘financially well off’. How do people in Britain afford to sail, with the price of boats, fuel, equipment, services and moorings being what they are?

I sail on Lake Huron (Georgian Bay), which gives me quite a few hundred square km of water from which to choose as my cruising ground. I have a membership of a very active (socially and racing) club, which also gives me reciprocal guest mooring at a number of other clubs as well as inter club racing. This costs me just under £500 a year including the deep-water berth. I pay the local Marina £100 in total to haul out and put in and £7 a ft. to store the boat at the same marina for the winter. Diesel currently costs 40p a litre and as an example I have just paid a bill of £140 to have three sails re stitched, holes repaired, padding sewn in to protect from spreaders and a new small panel let into my cruising chute. My boat, a 1986 30ft. cruiser/racer cost me £15000.00, including steel cradle and with loads of electronics, instruments and other equipment already installed.

As I have now retired, we have been considering returning to the South of England but from what I read in your price guide it would appear that I have little chance, (now on a pension) of continuing sailing if we were to return. How do pensioners and ordinary working people afford to sail in the U.K.? What is the secret?
 
It certainly sounds like sailing is a lot cheaper where you are, there must be a lot of boaters there, because to charge so little for the services you describe, the service supplyers must have a lot of customers, or they would starve.
Over here the cheapest way to sail and own your own boat, is to have a bilge keeler on a swinging drying mooring. Its still possible to run such a boat on a tiny budget, even in the Solent.
Chrissie
 
Not a pensioner yet, but belong to a boat club away from the South Coast of England.

Our club in Swansea is very reasonably priced, but there is a waiting list to join of course.

As for boat repairs, just get used to doing it yourself, unless forced to go to the proffesional's. Mind having said that it is sometimes cheaper to get the job done right first time!!

You are not right to assume its only the well monied people who sail, they certainly take the luxy end of the market.

They are many of us scrimp and save to keep our hobby afloat.

As for diesel cost's no comment really, except that I use less than 100 litres a year. But am waiting for the government to learn how to tax the wind!!

Hope you make it back...
 
If you have been gone for 20 years and get depressed reading about the costs of UK boating, then whatever you do don't come back.
You would be suicidal when you see what has happened whilst you have been away !
 
[ QUOTE ]
But am waiting for the government to learn how to tax the wind!!



[/ QUOTE ]

It will be coming soon. Water companies can now tax rain, and local authorities can tax open views.
 
It is possible to run a small boat economically in UK as indicated by other posters. There are many of us. retired, who find sailing a good way to forget about the mess which is UK. The real question is how we old people can get abroad at the end of our life and remove ourselves from this very discouraging country. Many have stayed on or retired to UK because of family ties and this is, of course, understandable, but if this does not apply to you my advice would be to stay away!
 
I guess the big difference between Canada & the UK is the value of land - has a knock-on impact on everything else. If I had an enjoyable lifestyle in Canada there is no way I would come back.
 
It 's hard to make these comparisons really. It so depends on
what is important for you personally. Having a boat in England, as you know, gives you access to other countries and a wealth of culture and opportunities that cannot be compared. This may, or may not be important, depending on inclination, but has to be weighed in the balance.

As far as costs are concerned, the £200 a year winter storage you pay will offset the increased cost of fuel on an average use basis. And, as other posts, show, we have tended to do more of our own work because at £40 pr hour the charges can run up.

It's true that the socialists (we know how to distribute it but have no clue as to how to make it) and limp-wristed who infest government at the moment cannot bring themselves to match spend to income, but even this will change - austerity is on the horizon - and that alone, with its implications for those on fixed incomes, may make your decision to return for you.

PWG
 
VikingRaider

Welcome to Rip Off Britain. Your observations on the cost of sailing apply to almost all other aspects of life in the UK. Because the residents of this beleagered island are too close to it, they have failed to spot the incremental changes over recent years that have been bleeding us to death. Because we are now semi-bankrupt it will get progressively worse, not better.

If you have no real need to return, stay in Canada!
 
As someone who also once lived for many happy years in Canada, including Ontario (London, Barrie and Orillia) and has remained an expatriate most of my adult life, I join the others who recommend you to stay where you are for a better quality of life.

Of course, I understand the basic urge to return to your roots when no longer fixed by earning an income and only you can say where your heart is. But economically and in so many other ways, the UK is an overcrowded and costly place to live and sail, especially if you aim for the south coast.

The only down side to where you are is the climate - long winters when you cannot get afloat. But then, summers are wonderful, which is more than can be said for the UK. Unless you have such a socially comfortable base in Ontario, perhaps the west coast could be an alternative - Vancouver Island was where I felt most at home and the sailing is good.
 
of course in making these comparisons you have to bear in mind that both the minimum wage and average earnings are higher in the uk than in canada.
 
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of course in making these comparisons you have to bear in mind that both the minimum wage and average earnings are higher in the uk than in canada.

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Oh don't spoil their fun with anything so mundane as a social fact /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif.
I think Britain's greatest problem is not socialism in government (if only) or any of the other alleged ills that such as those who love to join threads like this bemoan. I think our greatest failing is endemic pessimism and selfishness (whomever the cap fits I would be obliged if you would wear it).

This is a fantastic country to live in. Our Higher Education institutions are among the best in the world, we have good health care, enough to eat and a high degree of freedom. There are lots of things wrong, things we need to change and things we should be concerned about but this is not Zimbabwe, Sudan or Tadjikistan. The fact that recreational boating is a bit more expensive than on the Great Lakes is hardly a good basis for deciding where to live is it?
 
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This is a fantastic country to live in. Our Higher Education institutions are among the best in the world, we have good health care, enough to eat and a high degree of freedom.

[/ QUOTE ]Here Here. My biggest problems are that I am overweight and have too many boats.

I am trying hard to work up a head of self pity but I don't seem to be able to manage it.
 
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[ QUOTE ]
of course in making these comparisons you have to bear in mind that both the minimum wage and average earnings are higher in the uk than in canada.

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh don't spoil their fun with anything so mundane as a social fact /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif.
I think Britain's greatest problem is not socialism in government (if only) or any of the other alleged ills that such as those who love to join threads like this bemoan. I think our greatest failing is endemic pessimism and selfishness (whomever the cap fits I would be obliged if you would wear it).

This is a fantastic country to live in. Our Higher Education institutions are among the best in the world, we have good health care, enough to eat and a high degree of freedom. There are lots of things wrong, things we need to change and things we should be concerned about but this is not Zimbabwe, Sudan or Tadjikistan. The fact that recreational boating is a bit more expensive than on the Great Lakes is hardly a good basis for deciding where to live is it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't agree more. I've lived in the USA for 3 years and have also visited Ontario and other parts of Canada [have lots of cousins there] and find such places basically boring compared with the UK. Toronto has the CN tower and that's about it. My wife and I would never consider for one moment moving abroad but I'm puzzled as to why the perpetual whiners don't do so.
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
of course in making these comparisons you have to bear in mind that both the minimum wage and average earnings are higher in the uk than in canada.

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh don't spoil their fun with anything so mundane as a social fact /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif.

[/ QUOTE ]

And don't bother checking "facts" before you quote them.

In 2005 (the only year for which I have been quickly able to find data) the median earning figure in Canada was equivalent to just over £23k. In the UK it was just over £18k.

The basic trouble in this country is that too few workers are subsidising too many parasites -- civil servants, local government, "health and safety professionals" etc. etc.

And the only reasons I can think of why most of us stay here is because our crap education system has left us with a fear of foreign languages, and our crap health system and social welfare systems means we have to stay to fight the corner for our elderly relatives.

Oh, I forgot: the sailing is beatiful: don't you just love the Solent -- two oil terminals, a container port, two military ports, nine (I think) ferry terminals and a power station in a patch of water less than twenty miles long! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Oh, I forgot: the sailing is beatiful: don't you just love the Solent -- two oil terminals, a container port, two military ports, nine (I think) ferry terminals and a power station in a patch of water less than twenty miles long! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[/ QUOTE ] Boo Hoo Hoo!
My grass isn't green enough.

What exactly do you get if you win this argument??
 
A free mud berth on the East Coast and a 1997 recording of Tony Blair singing "Things can only get better"
 
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