Cost of cruising 1960 v 2015

Mataji said:
I wonder what it would have cost to buy the boat in those days.
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They paid £3300 to have the boat custom built in 1950. Adding on 50% for fitting out that comes to just under £5000. Something like £300000 today, for a 30-footer. The advertised "on the water" price for a Beneteau Oceanis 31 is just over £86000. If you add 50% for fully outfitting it, it's still about half the price.
 
StormNorm said:
If you allow £20 per day for mooring fees today, that leaves £43 for food, entertainment and boat bits. We certainly spend less than that, but it's not an outrageous sum, surely?
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Pardon me but if spending £20 daily for mooring fees plus £43 for food, entertainment (and boat bits?) also every day what kind of 'cruising' is it? With respect, it seems more like a floating pub-crawl between marinas. What's wrong with anchoring and cooking on board?
 
PuffTheMagicDragon said:
Pardon me but if spending £20 daily for mooring fees plus £43 for food, entertainment (and boat bits?) also every day what kind of 'cruising' is it? With respect, it seems more like a floating pub-crawl between marinas. What's wrong with anchoring and cooking on board?
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Nothing at all. But there are many, many who sail or motor from Marina to marina, eat out and visit hostelries. It's a perfectly legitimate way to cruise. Not for me, but to each his own.
 
Surely in comparing lifestyles, the Hiscocks seem to have a more frugal existence and marinas/ paid anchorages etc didn't happen.
 
I know from the builder that Paean (24 footer) was sold to her first owner for £875 in 1961. At that time it was the same as one year salery of the Doctor who borght her.

Today a GP earns about the same as a new 35 foot AWB. About 100k I believe.
 
PhillM said:
Today a GP earns about the same as a new 35 foot AWB. About 100k I believe.
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That's a partner GP, and they got a huge (~40%) payrise under New Labour in return for not doing out-of-hours work any more. Yeah, I know - a lot more money for doing a lot less. Nice work if you can get it. Grumping aside, doctors' salaries have been very anomalous, and don't make a good basis for comparison.
 
JumbleDuck said:
That's a partner GP, and they got a huge (~40%) payrise under New Labour in return for not doing out-of-hours work any more. Yeah, I know - a lot more money for doing a lot less. Nice work if you can get it. Grumping aside, doctors' salaries have been very anomalous, and don't make a good basis for comparison.
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Fair enough. I'm no economist - if I was I'd never have "invested" in MAB :)
 
FWIW, I was on 1k pa by 1970 & thought I was made for life, my house cost £3k but I couldn't have afforded a boat on that. We got our first boat (£5k) in 1980 when an insurance policy matured. Moorings were self laid & free.

Incidentally, £1k pa was the salary for a Policeman or a Teacher at the time, both of which were "good jobs".
 
It doesn't surprise me that certain things are more affordable today compared to 1960........... Cars , flights, holidays, televisions and , it seems, boats.
(I am not including houses).

Perhaps, in 1960 , food was more expensive ?

.
 
MartynG said:
It doesn't surprise me that certain things are more affordable today compared to 1960........... Cars , flights, holidays, televisions and , it seems, boats.
(I am not including houses).

Perhaps, in 1960 , food was more expensive ?

.
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Dunno about 1960, but in 1969-70 we were spending £8 per week on our weekly shop for a couple & we felt we were living well. Our mortgage was about £24pm, about 1/4 of my salary.
 
So, allowing for the figures being estimates, it's perhaps fair to say that it's possible to go long-term cruising today for less money than the Hiscocks spent in 1960, even allowing for things like mooring fees. The money saved on buying the boat would finance a lot of voyaging. I would have expected the opposite.
 
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